.?/2 



All Al^^ 

LASK 



ISSUED BY 

PACIFIC COAST STEAMSHIP CO. 

SAN FRANCISCO. 



1890 




GOODALL, PERKINS & CO. 

—^GENERAL AGEIMTS^^-^ 

No. 10 Market St.,, San Francisco, Cal. 




GENERAL TICKET OFFICE, 

^. B. Jackson, General Passenger and Ticket Agent, 

214 MONTGOMEKY STREET, 
San Francisco. California. 



ific Coasts ^team^hip dompanij. 

ii^AMERS WILL SAIL from Broadway Wharf, San B'rancisco, 
J as follows: 

For Wrangel, Sitka, Juneau, and other ports in Alaska, as per 
time schedule, see pages 5, 6 and 7. 

For Victoria and Vancouver, (B. C), Port Townsend, Seattle and 

Tacoma, (Wash.), Steamers City of Puebla, Umatilla and Walla Walla, 9 

A. M., April and May 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30; June and July 4, 9, 14, 

ig, 24, 29; August 3, 8, 13, 18, 23, 28; September 2, 7, 12, 17, 22, 

27, and every fifth day thereafter. Connecting at Vancouver, B. C. with 

Canadian Pacific and at Tacoma. with Northern Pacific railroads; con- 

1 

necting at Port Townsend with Alaska Steamers. 

For Eureka, Areata and Field's Landing (Humboldt Bay), Steamer 
Pomona, 9 A. M., Wednesdays. 

For Point Arena, Cuffey's Cove, Whitesboro, Little River, Mendo- 
cino and Fort Bragg, Steamer Coos Bay, 4 P. M., Mondays and 
Thursdays. 

For Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Simeon, Cayucos, Port Harford, 
(San Luis Obispo,) Gaviota, Santa Barbara, San Buenaventura, Hueneme, 
Redondo, San Pedro, (Los Angeles), 8 A. M., every four days. 

For San Diego, stopping only at Port Harford .(San Luis Obispo), 
Santa Barbara and San Pedro, (Los Angeles,) 11 A. M., every four days. 

For Ensenada, San Jose del Cabo, Mazatlan, La Paz and Guaymas 
(Mexico), Steamer Newbern, 10 A. M., 25th of each month. 

For Portland and Astoria (Oregon), from Spear street Wharf, 10 A. 
M., every four days. 

Note. Nearly all of the Company's Steamers are new, fast, and elegantly fitted 
with all modern improvements. 

GENERAL TICKET OFFICE, 

D. B. JACKSON, Gen. Pass, and Ticket Age^ 

214 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. / 

♦♦•*♦*******♦ 
************ 

GooDALL, Perkins &/ 

Ho. 10 Olafket St., San ppp' 

/' 



F 904 
.P12 
Copy 1 



Pacific Coast Steamship Co 



♦******••**•*****■*•+*******♦ 



8H 8B01IT 



flLJlSP 



-♦**-^**********************-** 



[ggUED BY PAglFIg (50AST STEAMgHIP SO..,:;'oroX^ 



1B90. J-ifwral.^l 



GOODALL, PERKINS & CO. 



GENKRA.L AGENTS, 



No. lo MARKET STREET, - SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 



Genepal Ticket Offiee, - 214 IWontgomery StPeet, San ppaneiseo, Gal. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



3^0/0 i Pi c (2 o a<> t S I eci. pn^hip (Bo. 



IMPORTANT NOTICE 



Ulf?ITH^G FOf? Il^FOt^jWATION. 



Parties purchasing tickets or making inquiry by letter with the view of 
purchasing tickets, will save themselves and their correspondents much 
trouble and delay by furnishing specific information. 

Please bear in mind that there is a material difference between engaging 
a stateroom and a berth; a stateroom usually contains three berths; it 
'frequently happens, however, that people writing for information con- 
found these two terms. Full information should invariably be given 
when parties write seeking a definite reply in reference to this matter. 

First. — State the name of steamer and date on which you wish to take 
passage. 

Second. — State whether you want a berth, two berths or a stateroom 
and whether these sleeping accommodations should be on the upper or 
saloon deck, and whether or not you want the best (which of course is 
the highest price) in the ship, or that may remain unsold. 

Third. — State the number in your party; giving their names and sex, 
and relationship; and if not adults, their ages and how you want them 
berthed; z. e., who should occupy staterooms together. 

The object of efigaging accommodations being for the purpose of pre- 
venting others from purchasing same, they must be paid for as soon as 
practicable after being engaged. They will be reserved only sufficiently 
long for parties to purchase their tickets. This has been found necessary 
from the fact that it has happened on several occasions that those who 
have engaged accommodations have subsequently changed their minds 
and the accommodations engaged have been unoccupied during the voy- 
age; while they might have been sold in the mean time to parties who were 
anxious to pay for them, had they not been reserved for others who failed 
to do so. 



fl^' 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 




DURING the excursion season of 1889 many thousand tourists vis- 
ited Alaska. To say they werti pleased conveys but a faint impres- 
sion of their enthusiasm. They were delighted — charmed. Ask 
any one of them, it matters not whom, they all m.ake the same re- 
port and tell the same story of the matchless grandeur of the trip, of the 
midnight sun, of the placid waters, of the aurora borealis, of the majestic 
mountains, of the inland seas, of the mighty glaciers, of the thundering 
iceberg plunging into the sea and floating off in its glory of inimitable 
splendor, of the wealth of fish, timber and mineral, of the biggest quartz 
mill ever constructed, of the queer customs of the natives, of novelty and 
incident that may well make the trip the object of a lifetime. There is 
nothing like it. Without doubt it is " the biggest show on earth." 

The company will run two regular steamers to Alaska this season mak- 
ing fifteen-day trips. These are the large iron steamers City of Topeka 
and Geo. VV. Elder. There will also be run this season as a special 
excursion steamer, for seven trips only, the new and elegant iron steam- 
ship Queen. This steamer is fitted with electric lights and all mod- 
ern improvements, and will make two trips per month. They will 
connect at Port Townsend with the San Francisco steamers. The Queen 
will make Tacoma her starting point, calling at Seattle, Port Townsend 
and Victoria, while the Geo. W. Elder and City of Topeka will start from 
Portland, calling at Tacoma, Seattle, Port Townsend and Victoria. 

Canadian Pacific passengers can take the Alaska steamers at Port 
Townsend or Victoria. Northern Pacific passengers, or passengers by 
rail from or via. Portland, can take the steamers at Tacoma or other 
Sound ports. . 

Tickets will be sold from San Francisco good either via. tjie Columbia 
River, Portland and Tacoma, or by the Straits of Fuca and Victoria, to 
go one way and return the other. Passengers from the East holding 
through tickets to Alaska via. Portland, can take the Alaska steamers the 
Geo. W. Elder or City of Topeka, direct from Portland or go from Port- 
land to Puget Sound by rail and take steamer there. 

When the fact is considered that the fare includes meals and a berth 
as well as transportation, it will be seen that the cost of the excursion is 
exceedingly small, in fact it is cheaper to travel than to stay at home. 

This company's maps and folders and other printed matter and inform- 
ation can be obtained at any of the Agencies of this Company, and the 
principal offices of all the large Rail and Transportation Companies in all 
the principal cities in the country. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



PRICES OF EXCURSION TICKETS TO ALASKA AND RETURN. 

SOLD ONLY DURING EXCURSION MONTHS, VIZ., MAY TO SEPTEMBER 

INCLUSIVE. 

(Including a Berth and Meals on Oceati Steamers. Extra Charge for 
Extra Stateroom Accomvwdations.). 

From San Francisco, via Victoria and Port Townsend, returning 

same way $130 

From San Francisco, via Victoria, returning via Tacoma, Port- 
land and Columbia River 140 

From San Francisco, via Portland and Tacoma, returning via 

Victoria a)id Straits of Fuca. 140 

From Portland, Orei^on, via Astoria, returning same way 109 

From Portland, Oregon, via Tacoma and Port Townsend. (N. P. 

R. R. to Tacoma) 109 

From Tacoma 100 

From Seattle — 98 

From Port Townsend 95 

From Yictoria, B. C 95 

Tickets (not retnrn) as follows: 

San Francisco to Juneau or Sitka Cabin $70.00 

San Francisco to Wrangel Cabin 50.00 

Portland to Juneau or Sitka Cabin 60.00 

Portland to Wrangel Cabin 40.00 

Tacoma to Wrangel Cabin 33.00 

Tacoma to Juneau or Sitka Cabin 53-00 

Seattle to Wrangel Cabin 32.50 

Seattle to Juneau or Sitka Cabin 52.50 

Victoria or Townsend to Juneau or Sitka. Cabin 50.00 

Victoria or Townsend to Wrangel Cabin 

Alaska excursion 



Steerage, $40.00 

Steerage, 25.00 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 

Steerage, 



35-00 
20.00 
17-50 

32-50 
17.00 
32.00 
30.00 
15.00 



30.00 
tickets can be purchased at San Francisco at 
( D. B.Jackson, (xen 
COMPANY'S GENERAL TICKET OFFICE, \ Pass. & Fk't Agt. 

( 214Mont*;omerySt 



W. T. WALLACE, 83 First St. 

( L. E. LYONS, at wharf or 

J G. G. CHANDLER, 

1 Headqnarters iiuilding. 

P. C. S. S. Co., Ocean Dock. 

- H. L. Tibbals, Jr. 

- R. P. Ritliet & Co. 

- Northern Pacific R. R. 

Union Pacific Railway. 

Canadian Pacific Railway. 



PORTLAND, 
TACOMA, 

SEATTLE, - - - - 

PORT TOWNSEND, 

VICTORIA, 

ST. PAUL, Minn., 

OMAHA, . - - 

MONTREAL, - - • 

Also at most of the Coupon offices of the principal Railway Companies 
all over the country and Canada. 

For the map of the Alaska Route obtain one of the P. C. S. S. Co.'s 
new Folders at any of the Agencies of this Company, and the principal 
offices of all the large Rail and Transportation Companies in all the prin- 
cipal cities in the country. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



8 


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ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



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ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 







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ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 




ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



Stateroom Rates, Alaska Route 



STEAMSHIP QUEEN. 



KOOMS 



Chai'Ke for 



One 
Person 



Two 
Persons 



Three 
or more 



HURRICANE DECK. 



Kooms 57 to 92 inclusive . - 
Large rooms, 2 berths in each. 

UPPER DECK. 



Booms 1 to 10 inclusive 

21-22-24-25 to 44 inclusive. 
lArge rooms, 3 berths in each. 



Bridal, A and B 

Large with one double berth. 



Rooms 11 to 20 inclusive 

Small rooms, 2 berths in each. 

SALOON DECK. 

Kooms 45 to 5(> inclusive 

Very large rooms, 3 berths in each. 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berths 



One Berth 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berths 



1 i fare . . 

2 fares., 



2i fares .. 



1 fare. . 
1^ fares., 

2 fares.. 



2 J fares.. 



2 fares.. 
2.T fares.. 



2h fares., 



1 fare. , 

2 fares. 



2 fares . 



1 fare.. 
1^ fares., 

2 fares., 



2 fares.. 
*2^ fares.. 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



*Except to man and wife, two fares. 
Berths are numbered from top down. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 




ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



Stateroom Rates, Alaska Route 



STEAMSHIP CITY OF TOPEKA. 



ROOMS 



UPPKR DECK 

Eooms 1-2-3-4 

Large rooms, 3 berths in each. 



Hooms 5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 
15-10-21-22-23-24 

Large rooms, 2 berths in each. 



Eooms 13-14-1 7-18-19-20 . . . . 

Very large rooms, 2 berths in each. 

SALOON DECK. 



Room8 25 to 30 inclusive . . . 
Good rooms, 2 berths in each. 



Rooms 31 and 32 

Good rooms, 3 berths in each. 



Charge for 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



One Bertii 
Two Berths 



One Bertii 
Two Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berths 



One 
Person 



1 fare. 
1.^ fares. 

2 fares . 



1 fare 

2 fares.. 



1\ fares. 
2 fares. 



Two 
Persons 



1 fare. , 

2 fares . 



I fare . . 
\h fares.. 
2' fares.. 



2 fares .. 
2) fares.. 



2 fares . 



2.^ fares. 



2 fares 



2 fares, 
*2h fares 



Three 
or more. 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



*Except to man and wife. Man and wife two fares. 
Berths are numbered from top down. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 




ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



13 



Stateroom Rates, Alaska Route 



STEAMSHIP GEO. W. ELDEK 



ROOMS 

UPPER DECK 

Nos. 23 and 24 (Bridals) 

[ Two berths in each. "| 

■< Berths numbered 2 are large > 
( double berths. j 

A B C D and Nos. 25 to 44, inclu- 
sive 

(Three single berths in each.) 

No. 45 

(Two berths. Lower Berth is wide.) 

ROOMS SALOON DECK. 

¥o8. 1 to 11, and 13 to 22, inclu- 
sive 

(Three single berths in each room.) 

No. 12 

'Two single berths.) 



Charge for 



One 
Person 



Two 
Persons 



Three or 

more 
Persons 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



One Berth 
Two Berths 
Three Berth 



One Berth 
Two Berths 



XH- fares.. 
2 fares .. 



1 fare . . 
1 J fares. 

2 fares .. 



2] fares. 



2 fares. 
25 fares. 



1^ fai-es.. 
2 fares .. 



2h fares. 



1 fare . , 

2 fares . 



2 fares. 
nh fares. 



1 fare . , 

2 fares . 



2 fares . 



Regular 

Single 

fare each 



do 



do 



do 



* Except to man and wile. Man and wife two fares. 

Berths are numbered from top down. 

Berths indicated as "wide" are large enough to accommodate one person 

and a child. 
I Do not sell one berth in Bridal room if a berth in another deck room can be 

offered. Prefer to sell Bridal room as a whole. 



14 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



rSxcu]?si©r)S 
TO THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 

USEFUL INFORMATION. 

No traveler or tourist has ever returnod from Alaska, after making the 
voyage by the steamers of the PACIFIC COAST STEAMSHIP CO., 
but has acknowledged it to he pre-eminently t/ie cheapest, grandest, and 
most enjoyable excursion ever advertised or patronized. As people 
have, as a rule, very crude and often very erroneous ideas in relation to 
Alaska — the means of getting there, the cost and length of time required 
to make the voyage — the following facts and information will be of inter- 
est to those who intend to stay at home as well as those intending to 
make the excursion. 

WHERE THE COUNTRY IS, AND ITS EXTENT. 

The name "Alaska" is a corruption of Al-ay-ek-sa, the name given by 
the native islanders to the mainland, and signifies "great country." It 
contains nearly 600,000 square miles of territory, or is nearly one-fifth as 
large as all the other States and Territories combined. It is larger than 
12 States the size of New York. 

The portion of Alaska visited by these excursions is the southeastern. 
It would require a couple of months to visit the western, and an indefi- 
nite and uncertain time to reach and return from the northern portion. 
In fact, the whaling fleet and the regular organized Arctic expeditions 
are about the only outfits that attempt to pass Point Barrow on the north- 
ern shore of Alaska. 

There are probably few people on the Pacific Slope, or elsewhere for 
that matter, aware of the fact that San Francisco is several hundred miles 
east of midway between the eastern and westernmost shores of the United 
States. Yet such is the case. It is nearly 4,000 miles from the longi- 
tude of the most western of the Aleutian Islands directly east to San 
Francisco, while it is not over about 3,500 miles from San Francisco di- 
rectly east to the longitude of the east coast of Maine. 

THE BEST TIME TO GO. 

The besfe time to visit Alaska for pleasure, is from May to September 
inclusive. Prospectors and miners should take either the April or May 
steamer, so as to be on the ground when the snow melts. September is 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 15 

the last month in the year that can be recommended for excursion pur- 
poses. The weather in September is usually lovely and the sea as smooth 
as a mirror; the days, however, begin to grow comparatively short. 

WHICH WAV TO GO AND RETURN. 

The excursion tickets from San Francisco are good for trip only of 
steamer for which sold. It takes about 30 days to make the trip via 
Victoria and Townsend and return the same way, but tickets are also 
sold to return via Townsend, Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and thence by 
steamer to San Francisco. If you can spare the time and extra cost 
(which is slight) this latter is the ticket to buy, as it enables you to see 
the up-sound ports as well as Portland and the grand and majestic Col- 
umbia River, It will also give you an opportunity to spend a few days 
visiting the Cascades, Oregon Falls, Willamette Valley, and other noted 
and interesting points in Oregon. 

Passengers via the Canadian Pacific can take or leave the Alaska 
steamer either at Port Townsend or Victoria. The service between Van- 
couver, the western terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Vic- 
toria, is performed by the C. P. N. Co's. steamers, which make daily 
trips (Mondays excepted). 

WHAT TO TAKE. 

As the rainfall in Alaska is usually very large, it naturally follows that 
an umbrella is a convenient companion. A gossamer for a lady and a 
mackintosh for a gentleman, and heavy shoes, and coarse, warm and 
comfortable clothing for both should be provided. You have no use for 
your swallow-tail or court dress, or Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes in 
Alaska. Ladies' skirts should be short, so they will not draggle over the 
wet deck of the steamer, or over the damp grass or moss on shore. If 
you intend (as you no doubt will and certainly should) to climb up on to 
and take a run over a Glacier, you will find much advantage if you have 
spikes in your shoes, and a stiff cane with a good ferrule on it, or else a 
regular Alpenstock. It is best for several to keep together in climbing 
around on a Glacier. A little hatchet and small rope in charge of some 
one of the party would be very handy in case of an accident, which is 
always possible if people are careless, but not probable if they are care- 
ful. You need not take any eatables — these are furnished without any 
extra charge, in abundance and of the best quality, on board. You are 
allowed to take 150 pounds of baggage free. 

PASSENGERS STARTING FROM SAN FRANCISCO 

Should take the steamer which leaves Broadway Wharf No. i for Victoria 
(B. C), and Puget Sound ports. On the third day out, in the morning 



i6 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

probably, by or before daylight, you arrive and tie up to the outer wharf 
at the entrance to Victoria harbor, B. C. Here the steamer remains sev- 
eral hours discharging her freight, during which time you can ride into 
and around the city. It is possible the Alaska steamer will be here waiting 
your arrival, but the chances are that you will make the connection over 
at Port Townsend, which is the regular port of transfer — selected (it 
being an American port) in order to avoid the annoyance from the Cus- 
toms officials. Victoria is, however, a much more enjoyable place than 
Port Townsend to spend a day or so in, and many passengers prefer to do 
so. A call on the Company's Agents, Messrs. R. P. Rithet & Co., Wharf 
Street, will obtain the information as to whether or not you can remain 
here or must proceed to Port Townsend and join the Alaska steamer at 
that point. 

PASSENGERS STARTING FROM PORTLAND, OREGON, 

Have a choice of two routes, viz: 

ist. Take the Alaska steamer at Portland and proceed down the 
Columbia River to Astoria, thence across the Bar, up the coast, through 
the Straits of Fuca to Port Townsend, and await the arrival of the con- 
necting steamer from vSan Francisco. 

2nd. Via the Northern Pacific R. R., from Portland by way of Ka- 
lama to Taconia. Passengers to leave Portland can obtain tickets and 
further information by calling at the ticket office of the P. C. S. S. Co., 
83 First Street. Passengers from Seattle or other points on the Sound 
can engage passage and obtain information by applying to the Company's 
agents at Victoria, Port Townsend, Seattle or Tacoma. 

START OUT FROM PORT TOWNSEND FOR ALASKA. 

Two or three hours steaming and you are in Victoria, B. C. — you have 
probably been here before, and will not care to tarry long — you will be ac- 
commodated — a few hours at the farthest and you are headed north — the 
chances are that next morning you will wake up and find yourself in 
Nanaimo, which is the coaling station. You may have time while the 
vessel is coaling to ride out to the coal mines. If you have not, you can 
amuse yourself fishing and rambling about the town and adjacent coun- 
try. You will not be kept here longer than absolutely necessary, for 
the Captain is anxious to start on his journey north — ready — all aboard — 
off we go! Now you can bid good-by to the railroad and telegraph, to 
the bustle and worry and confusion of the world — all you have to do now 
is to see and enjoy the sights; to eat, drink, and be merry. You would 
like to know 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 17 

WHAT THERE IS IN ALASKA TO ADMIRE. 

Well, let us see. There are a variety of things to admire, some to 
wonder at, others to ponder over, and all of them we hope to enjoy. 
First, then you will scarcely believe your own senses or realize the fact 
that the waters you are sailing over are the salt waters of the Pacific 
Ocean. It does not seem possible that you can glide along day after 
day, and week after week, without encountering a wave, or scarcely a 
ripple to disturb the equilibrium of the vessel. You will realize, how- 
ever, by the compass of your appetite, that you are obtaining all the ad- 
vantages of a sea-voyage, without being obliged to wrestle with that much 
dreaded monster, sea-sickness — you will wonder how, and when and why 
these thousands of islands, past which you are constantly sailing, were 
formed — islands, some of them no larger than a good sized house, while 
others are empires in themselves. You will sail through narrow and ser- 
pentine passages, which can only be navigated at slack and high tide, on 
account of the terrific current which rushes through at other stages of the 
tide. You will see, admire and pass through channels hundreds of miles 
in length, as straight as an arrow and of unfathomable depths, banked on 
either side by perpendicular and gigantic mountains, whose untrod sum- 
mits are clothed in clouds and ice. But what will interest you most of 
all will be the Glaciers — you will see a number of them on your way up 
to Juneau, glittering in the distance before you have an opportunity to 
climb on to one. There is such a romance and satisfaction in impart- 
ing the fact to your acquaintances that you have seen the Glaciers of 
Alaska, and travelled over them, which for beauty are unapproachable, 
and as for size — why, the largest one in Switzerland would scarcely make 
a respectable sized nose if it could be transferred bodily to the face of 
one of those sleeping giants in the fastnesses of Alaska. If the tide is 
right you will hear the thundering crash caused by the icebergs breaking 
off from the Glaciers and tumbling into the water. You will also most 
likely see the ship surrounded by a "sea of ice," which is the prettiest 
picture you have ever seen, and which you will be sure to admire and 
never forget. If you have never visited a mining camp and seen the 
miners with their picks and shovels and red shirts, you will doubtless be 
pleased at the opportunity which you will have at Douglas Island (near 
Juneau) of looking over the Treadwell mine and seeing the largest quartz- 
mill in the United States in full operation. It is only a short walk from 
Juneau to the placer mines. Alaskan waters abound in the choicest 
kinds of fish which, though you may not particularly admire, you will 
doubtless enjoy. The salmon and hallibut, fresh as the morning dew, of 
which you frequently have opportunity to partake, are simply delicious— 



i8 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Yum! yum! If you prefer to catch, rather than to eat these beauties, 
no one objects, and there is plenty of opportunity. The Indians are 
much finer and more intelligent than those you have seen further south. 
You will be amused to see the squaws, on the arrival of the steamer (by 
the way, the arrival of the steamer is the great event of the month), sit- 
ting around on the sills of the wharf, dressed in their best raiment, and 
many of them with a portion of their face blackened — sometimes their 
teeth — which, added to their natural ugliness, makes them look like the 
very old Nick himself. The more stormy the weather the less clothing 
these Indians wear as a rule, for they evidently consider clothing made 
more for ornament than use. They will offer you furs, silver bracelets, 
little carved images, canoes and various knicknacks for sale, but, as a 
rule, they have a high appreciation of their wares, and you can do better 
to buy from a white man's store in Sitka or Juneau. You will be 
amused at their totem poles — which are made by cutting down a good, 
straight tree, dressing it down to the desired size, and then carving it in 
a very rude way, with figures of birds, Indian warriors, and other fantas- 
tic shapes which resemble very much Chinese carving. After these poles 
receive a sufficient amount of labor and skill, they are raised and planted 
on end before the owner's hut — and great value is attached to some of 
them — a couple of thousand dollars being considered a very reasonable 
price for some of the largest and choicest. 

AT WHAT POINTS STEAMERS STOP IN ALASKA. 

That depends on circumstances. They ahvays call at Wrangel, Sitka 
and Juneau. Sitka is the capital of the Territory, but Juneau is the 
chief settlement, and is the headquarters of the mining business. You 
must not fail lo see the Greek church in Sitka, There are but two 
Greek churches in the United States, outside of Alaska, and this is the 
most ancient and interesting of them all. Most of the other places the 
steamers stop at are trading-posts and fisheries. Fishing, mining and 
trading are the principal industries in Alaska. 

There are no "Palace" hotels in Alaska. You will have no desire to 
remain over there a trip. You will go necessarily when and where the 
steamer goes, and you will have an opportunity to see all there is of note 
or worth seeing in Southeastern Alaska. The steamer sometimes goes 
north as far as Chilcat, say up to about the 58th degree of north latitude. 
The pleasure is not so much in the stopping as in the going. You are 
constantly passing through new channels, past new islands, opening up 
new points of interests, until you finally surfeit of the grand and magnifi- 
cent in nature and are dad to 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 19 

RETURN. 

The transfer will be made at either Port Townsend or Victoria from 
the Alaska steamer to the San Francisco steamer. Passengers going to 
or by way of Portland, can take the train at Tacoma, over the N. P. R. R. 
to Portland. Steamer Queen will terminate her trip at Tacoma. 

H.AVING ARRIVED HOME 

You will find your eyes clear and sparkling, your appetite keen, your 
step more elastic, your general health immensely improved, and in case 
you were not up to a proper and healthy standard when you started out, 
your avoirdupois increased anywhere from five to thirty pounds. You 
will be delighted at having made the journey. You will have lots of 
stories to tell of your experiences, which will make you the lion of your 
social gathering and the envy of those who stayed at home or went to the 
springs. This is the almost invariable experience of those who take this 
trip to Alaska. 

The following is an extract from Miss Scidmore's book "Journeys in 
Alaska:" 

"Life on the waveless arms of the ocean has a great fascination for one 
of these Alaska trips, and crowded with novelty, incidents and surprises 
as each day is, the cruise seems all too short when the end approaches. 
One dreads to get to land again and end the easy, idle wandering through 
the long archipelago. A voyage is but one protracted marine picnic, 
and an unbroken succession of memorable days. Where in all the list 
of them to place the red letter or the white stone puzzles one. The pas- 
sengers beg the Captain to reverse the engines, or boldly turn back and 
keep up the cruise until the autumn gales make us willing to return to 
the region of earthly cares and responsibilities, daily mails and telegraph 
wires. The long nightless days never loose their spells, and in retrospect 
the wonders of the northland appear the greater. The weeks of contin- 
uous travel over deep, placid waters in the midst of magnificent scenery 
might be a journey of exploration on a new continent, so different is it 
from anything else in American travel. Seldom is anything but an In- 
dian canoe met, for days no signs of settlement are seen along the quiet 
fiords, and making nocturnal visits to small fisheries, only the unbroken 
wilderness is in sight during waking hours. 

"The anchoring in strange places, the going 10 and fro in small boats, 
the queer people, the strange life, the peculiar fascination of the frontier, 
and the novelty of the whole thing affect one strangely. Each arm of 
the sea and the unknown, unexplored wilderness that lies back of every 
mile of shore, continually tempt the imagination." 



20 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Y^^ l\0utc lo ir)e Vu^oi). 

HOW TO GO AND WHAT THE TRH' COSTS— PRICES OF 
PROVISIONS ON THE GROUND. 

[From the Alaskan Free Press, February 25, 1888.1 

As a great deal has been said regarding tlie expenditure and hardships 
encountered in going to the Yukon mines, I beg to make a few remarks 
on the same. 

I left Victoria on March ii, 1887, ^^'i^^h several months' provisions, 
including mining implements, gum boots, quicksilver, etc., amounting to 
750 pounds in all. 

The total cost of the outfit, including steamboat fare and freight on 
goods to Juneau, sleigh, snowshoes, fare and freight from Juneau to the 
foot of the portage by steamer, Indian help on the summit, and landed 
at Lake Lindeman (the headwaters of the Yukon) with 700 pounds, was 
$125. 

The distance from Haley's house, at the head of Lynn Canal, over 
the divide to Lake Lindeman, according to Mr. Ogilvie's measurement, 
is 233^ miles, and out of this there is about five miles of bad traveling. 

Lake Lindeman once reached, I consider the real hardships over. 
Here the miner can load up his sleigh and go down on the ice, or if he 
starts later in the season he can either build his boat or raft and proceed 
down to the mines without further obstruction, except Prayer Portage, 
]^ of a mile, and the White Horse Rapids, the latter through which 
some run, while others make a portage of j^ of a mile. 

To prove that the trip down from the above lake to the mines in boats 
and on rafts is an easy one, numbers of inexperienced boatmen have ac- 
complished it within the last five years without meeting with any accidents 
worth mentioning. 

At the mines the extreme lowest and highest pay was from $5 to $130 
per day. But the majority of the miners made from $10 to $40 per day. 

One does not go out of the world in going into the Yukon. At 
Juneau City all the requirements of the miner are very reasonable, and 
good stocks are constantly kept on hand, and board in the hotels not ex- 
celled for the price on the Pacific Coast at $1 per day. 

At the Chilcoot Mission, situated 18 miles from the portage, Mr. 
Dickinson keeps a store with a well-assorted stock and reasonable prices. 

At the head of Lynn Canal, the foot of the portage, Mr. Healy keeps 
a store and hotel, where the best of meals are furnished for 50 cents. 

Messrs. Harper, McQuestin & Co. are the sole merchants in the mines 
at present, and their prices are very moderate, as follows: Flour @ $17 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



per loo lbs; bacon @ 40c per lb; beans @ 20c per lb; sugar @ 33c 
per lb; dried fruit @ 25c per &; butter @ 75c per lb. 

Although it would be advisable for miners to take in supplies enough 
to last until the middle of August, as the first shipment of goods by way 
of the mouth of the Yukon does not reach the mines until the latter part 
of July. 

By helping the ground to thaw out, the mining season in open diggings 
lasts about five months. 



, i?©S"0ecii 



peciii)g 



Quifif. 



The country being as described, prospecting will be seen to be very- 
difficult and laborious. Still, by taking the beds of the streams it can 
be done satisfactorily, and there is enough in sight now to induce a more 
thorough exploration than has ever yet been made. Hopeful indications 
continue to reward every attempt, and the opinion is general among 
mining men that many more rich gold fields will be discovered. For the 
work of prospecting a boat of some kind is the first necessity, and it 
should have a good sail and be fitted with the means of securing goods 
(a few at least) against rain and wave. Besides a boat, a good tent large 
enough to shelter the entire party should be provided, and bear or other 
skins enough to lay under them to protect bed and body from the damp- 
ness in the ground. These last can be obtained in the country. After 
this a stout rain-coat and gum-boots come next, and the remainder of 
the outfit, as to tools, provisions, etc., can be according to individual 
preference. Each party should have at least one good rifle of large cali- 
ber, as bears are sometimes encountered, and deer frequently seeen. 

Slirr)Gtle. 

During the four winter months just passed the following has been 
the range of the thermometer: 





December. 


January. 


February. 


March. 


Highest 

Lowest 

Range 


50-5 
20.5 
30.0 


48.0 

4.0 

44.0 


52.5 
24.0 

28-5 


49.0 
24.0 
25-0 



22 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

The Spring in Alaska is generally more backward than in more south- 
ern latitudes, doubtless because the mountains invariably become covered 
with snow during winter, and until it has begun to appreciably disappear, 
the atmosphere is kept more or less chilled. But the compensation 
•comes in the Fall, when the mild weather is extended far beyond its 
limit in many other places nearer the center of civilization. Vegetables 
and flowers frequently are found, growing out in the gardens after De- 
cember has arrived, and it is rare that heavy frosts occur before that 
month. The Summers in Alaska are delightful — never oppressively 
warm, but enough so as to cheer and invigorate. The thermometer 
clings around 79" for weeks, and sometimes months, while the pleasant 
daylight never entirely fades out of the amberfsky. 



Extracts from Letters Received by the P. C. S. S. Co. 



[From John T. Morris, the celebrated Iron Manufacturer of Pliiladelphia.] 

"I have been trying to find time ever since my return from our Alaska 
trip to express my and our thanks to you for having arranged everything 
so pleasant for us; also for having encouraged us to take the trip at all. 
It exceeded my every expectation, and I can only hope that many more 
parties will visit those beautiful land-locked waters; and I hope they will 
also enjoy as delightful weather and have as pleasant company as we had. 

The trip will be an ever-memorable one to us." 



[From Prof. Jas. Dennian, Principal Denuian Grammar School, San Francisco.] 

"The sea-voyage after leaving Victoria is upon quiet waters, which are 
land-locked from the swell and storms of the ocean. The scenery from 
Puget Sound to Glacier Bay is beautiful beyond description. In all my 
wanderings through Europe and South America I have never seen any- 
thing so grand and beautiful as Alaska. I shall take pleasure in recom- 
mending to my travelling friends the trip to Alaska, as I think they will 
never regret the time and expense." 



[From the Hon. Southard Hofl'man, Clerk of the U. S. District Court, S. F.] 

"I enjoyed the trip amazingly and returned enthusiastic as to its beau- 
ties. The officers were polite and attentive. The excursion is bound to 
be one much sought after in the near future, and I am doing, and shall 
in the future do, what I can to induce people not to deny themselves 
the great pleasure of taking it. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 23 

[From His Honor M. R. Waite, late Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the 

United States.] 

Palace Hotel, Sept. 10, 1886. 
Messrs. Goodall, Perkins & Co. : 

My Dear Sirs: I cannot leave this coast without letting you know 
what a delightful trip I had to Alaska on the Idaho in July and August. 
It was all I had looked for, and more, too. The officers and men on the 
ship were thoughtful and attentive, and nothing was left undone that 
would contribute to the comfort and pleasure of the passengers. I am 
certain the excursion will soon become one of the most popular on the 
continent, and it surely is one of the most enjoyable. 

Very sincerely yours, 
(Signed) M. R. WAITE. 



[From Wm. G. Hibbard, Esq., of Hibbard, Spencer, Bartlett & Co., Chicago.] 

I sailed on the Idaho about the 26th of July. Had one of the most 
enjoyable trips I have ever taken. I found the Idaho a very fair vessel, 
the fare very good, officers all Dleasant, and Capt. Hunter double Ai. 
Think every man and woman who was on that steamer would say the same 
thing. 



[From E. M. Barton, Esq., Chicago.] 

I made a trip to Alaska in the steamer Ancon the fore part of August, 
1887. I had my family with me, consisting of my wife and three chil- 
dren. Every member of the family enjoyed the trip, which we shall re- 
member with pleasure as long as we live. 



[From H. B. Whipple, Bishop of Minnesota.] 

Maitland, Fla., Jan. 17, 1889. 
Dear Sir: I know of no scenery in our country more beautiful, and 
no excursion that I have ever made has left so many delightful memories 
as our excursion on your steamer to Alaska with the Lord Bishop of 
Rochester. 



[P'rom Wm. Garrard, Esq., Savannah, Ga.] 

Gentlemen: I enjoyed my trip to Alaska very much. It was like 
going into a foreign country. It is a most interesting excursion. 



24 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

nothing to equal it that I know of. The climate in summer, the beauti- 
ful land-locked water-way, the gold mines, fisheries, Indians, glaciers, 
and the good service on the boats combine to render it a charming voy- 
age, and I only wish I could go again. 



[From L G. Wickersham, Esq., Petaluma, Cal.] 

Words fail to express the satisfaction and pleasure enjoyed by myself 
and family on our trip to Alaska. The accomodations were good, the 
weather delightful, the scenery magnificent, and all tourists should by all 
means make an excursion to Alaska. I hope to go again. 



[From J. B. Phelps, Esq., Davenport, Iowa.] 

One must admit that the Alaska trip cannot be duplicated in this 
country, and probably not in the world. We were delighted; the scenery 
is grand. Every day from Tacoma until our return was a grand surprise. 
Have heard tourists remark that Norway scenery was the nearest like it 
of any to be found, but did not equal it. Have not been a great trav- 
eler, but having been born in the x'\dirondacks, have always enjoyed fine 
scenery, such as Lake George, Thousand Islands, White Mountains. 
Down the Hudson, also St. Lawrence river, St. John's river, Florida, 
our own Mississippi and Colorado, but Alaska is a combination of 
them all. 



[From Thos. Egleston, Esq., of Metallurgical Department, vSchool of Mines, 
Columbia College, New York.] 

Gentlemen: A party of us from here are talking of going to Alaska 
next summer if we can be assured of seeing certain things which I did 
not see in my trip there last summer. I have been asked to make ar- 
rangements for the party, providing the trip extends to Chilcat and we 
are able to see the Davidson Glacier and the three glaciers in Takou Inlet. 
When I went last summer the Chilcat trip was given up, or rather, we 
were given the choice to go to Chilcat or Takou Inlet, and as the most 
of us knew nothing about what was to be seen at Chilcat we chose Takou 
Inlet and then failed to see the Glaciers except at a great distance. I 
should be glad to hear from you and also to receive copies of such pam- 
phlets as you have published relating to the trip. I never spent in my 
life a more interesting two weeks than those that I spent in Alaska. I 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 25 

have over 150 photographs, which I am constantly showing to people 
and never fail to elicit from them the wish that they might be able to 
go there. 



[From Alex. G. Hawes, Esq., San Francisco.] 

All things considered, the visit to Alaska was the most .satisfactory 
pleasure trip I ever made. To get beyond telegraphs, and away from 
the hustling hurly-burly a while, is pretty good in itself; but there is 
something in the primeval grandeur of the Northern Scenery — in the 
solitude of its woods — which gives more than rest. It rests one every 
time he thinks of it afterwards. 



[From J. H. Sadler, Esq., San Francisco.] 

I have traveled a great deal, yet I do not think I ever enjoyed any- 
thing so much as I did the trip from Port Townsend to Chilcat and 
intermediate points and return. The courtesies of the officers on board 
the steamer were all that a man could desire. The scenery is grand and 
it would pay any man to take the trip. To business men, who wish to 
take a rest, or to pleasure-seekers, there is nothing I have ever seen that 
can compare with it in any part of the world. Although the trip takes 
but twenty-four days to go and come, I would have liked to have stayed 
twice that length of time and I sincerely hope you will have excursions 
to go direct from San Francisco to Alaska, as I have no doubt they 
would prove very profitable to your good selves and of great benefit to 
the public. 



[From C. S. Thomas, Esq., Denver, Colorado.] 

I have no hesitation in asserting that the excursion from Tacoma to 
Sitka and return is the most enjoyable and delightful trip that can be 
taken upon this Continent, and, while I have never visited another, I 
doubt if its equal can be found in any part of the world. It combines 
so completely the advantages of an ocean voyage with the delights of an 
inland excursion, that one forgets completely that he is upon or near 
the ocean. It seemed to me that the only parallel presented by any- 
thing in the East is the Hudson River; if one can imagine that extended 
to ten or twelve times its length and opening out here and there into 
enormous bodies of water, he can obtain some faint conception of the 



26 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

delights experienced by the Alaskan tourist. The constant change of 
magnificent scener)-, the mountains both near and far, the snow, the 
native races and, above all, the stupendous glaciers, all of which are so 
accessible, together with the splendid accommodations enjoyed on board 
the Olympian — not the least of which is the uniform and delightful cour- 
tesy of Captain Carroll and his assistants — makes the trip an epoch in 
my existence. We have urged all our Colorado friends to take the trip 
by all means, knowing that if they fail to do so they will miss one of the 
features of this quarter of the present century. This may seem extrava- 
2;ant, but it nevertheless expresses not only my own but the sentiments 
of every man and woman who sailed on the Olympian on the 21st of 
August, 1 887. It m;iy not be amiss to add that it is also the cheapest 
excursion, considering the comforts and accommodations afforded, that 
can at present be taken in any direction. 



[From L. F. Monteagle, Esq., San Francisco.] 

As it is part of my belief that when one finds a new subject for 
enjoyment he ought to at least try to induce others to share it with him, 
and as I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude for selling me tickets, 
for my wife and myself, for our recent trip to Alaska, I desire to write you 
a few lines conveying to you our thorough gratification with the result 
of our experience. 

It would be rather a difficult matter to condense into a few lines a 
description of the natural beauties and wonders which the constantly 
changing panorama of the voyage discloses, nor shall I attempt to do 
so, but I must say that to any one capable of appreciating both the 
beautiful and sublime in nature, I believe that nowhere can he find a 
larger field for the play of his admiration than among the winding 
channels and thousand islands, the towering mountains and giant glaciers 
of Alaska. Much has been written by able pens on the subject of 
Alaskan glaciers, but when one stands on the beach under the frowning 
face of such a glacier as the "Muir," watching the icebergs break off 
and fall with a noise like thunder into the sea, or sees it sparkle in the 
glor}' of a July sun, he realizes that no pen, however gifted, can do justice 
to the scene. 

For healthfulness, pleasure and rest this trip surpasses any in my 
experience, for all these things can be seen without discomfort. The 
demon, seasickness, dreaded by so many, is banished from these realms, 
as the steamer's course, winding in and out among the innumerable 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 27 

islands which line the coast, is shut in and protected from the ocean 
swell; and as one, wrapped in a rug and extended comfortably in a 
steamer chair, drinks in the pure air and watches the changing beauties 
of island and channel, he feels new life coursing through his veins. 
There are many objects of interest also in the towns of Sitka, Juneau 
and Wrangel, and as the steamer only stops long enough at each place to 
afford an opportunity of seeing "the sights," one is not wearied by 
tedious delays. For the busy city man, seeking relief from the cares of 
business and from the noisy hum of the human bees in town, this trip, 
on which neither letter nor telegram can reach him, gives a rest which 
is both necessary and enjoyable; and if any one who may make this 
voyage does not feel repaid for his time and expenditure, I shall feel 
sorry for him as a man who lacks the power of enjoying much of any 
thing in life. 



NINETEEN DAYS IN ALASKA. 



REV. THOMAS ROGERS, D. D. , ELDRIDGE, N. Y. 

Scenery. — No artist's brush or poet's pen can adequately set forth 
the extraordinary scenery of the labyrinthine water-ways of this land, 
winding amidst snow-capped mountains, immense glaciers and towering 
forests of spruce and pine and cedar. The passage from Victoria to 
Chilcat is on the salt water of the Pacific, but sheltered most of the 
way from its swell and storms by outlying islands. Through these nar- 
row winding channels which cut Southeastern Alaska into a delightful 
archipelago the steamer makes her way, sometimes with, and sometimes 
against, the tide as it ebbs and flows through its tortuous windings. 
There are places where the velocity of the current at ebb or flow renders 
navigation dangerous. This is notably so at Seymor Rapids between 
Vancouver Island and the mainland where the current attains to twelve 
knots an hour. Advancing northward the scenery increases in grandeur. 
Mountain tops are more heavily capped with snow, occasionally the 
bosom of a glacier embedded in the mountain side flashes in the sun, 
below we seem to have reached the ultimate haven in a land-locked bay. 
But as we approach the rocky shore the ship slowly swings to port or 
starboard, and we glide into another stretch of waters so^new, so wildly 
primeval, that it seems — 



28 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

" We were tlie first thiit over l>tirst 
Into that silent sen." 

If I were able to paint one of many choice spots I would describe 
"Wright's Sound." It is a lake-like sheet of water entered by five 
different channels. All aiound this sleeping beauty rise dome-shaped 
mountains as sentinel guards. Some reader will recall his first view of 
the dotne of the National Capitol on approaching Washington. There 
is one small dome, less than three hundred feet high, yet one view of 
it makes an impression not soon forgotten. Here are five or six great 
domes two or three thousand feet high which look down upon you and 
on the steamer on whose deck you sit as giant sentinels might view a 
company of Lilliputians. 

On the northern border of New York State there is a spot widely cel- 
ebrated for its scenic beauty. Summer tourists in growing numbers resort 
thither to seek rest from mental toil, or to find a pleasurable summer 
outing. These "Thousand Islands" are embraced in a widening of the 
St. Lawrence River, sixteen miles long and seven miles broad. South- 
eastern Alaska besides its thirty-mile belt of coast line on the mainland 
extending from Mt. St. Elias to Fort Tongas, embraces an area four hun- 
dred miles long and forty miles broad; cut by thousands of miles of wind- 
ing channels into thousands of islands. While many of these islands are 
small barren rocks, or bearing only a few trees, many of them are moun- 
tains belted with splendid timber at their bases, and piercing the clouds 
with snow-covered summits. Every morning of our northward voyage 
we wake up to look on mountain scenery more imposing. At last we 
reach "Glacier Bay." The water is covered with icebergs, the tops of 
which are chiseled by nature's artists into groups of fantastic statuary of 
endless variety. Timber has disappeared, mountains are bare, and scen- 
ery assumes a decidedly bleak appearance. Suddenly our farther prog- 
gress is arrested by a frozen Niagara in front of us stretched entirely 
across the narrowing bay a distance of five thousand feet, and rising per- 
pendicularly above the water two hundred and fifty feet, and reaching 
below the surface four hundred and fifty feet. This is the foot of Muir 
Glacier, the largest of the five glaciers which dip their feet and shed their 
substance into this wonderful bay. The steamer anchors near the eastern 
shore, boats are lowered, and the passengers are landed for a day's ex- 
perience to be enjoyed but once in a lifetime. While lost in wonder at 
what our eyes see, we are startled by the ears hearing what resembles the 
report of a heavy cannon. Looking across in the direction whence the 
sound came we see great commotion of the water caused by the plunging 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 29 

of an immense mass of ice into its depths. Soon a tidal wave reaches 
the shore and dashes up on the land like the waves of the tempest-driven 
sea. During low tide this phenomenon is often repeated. On the lateral 
moraine we climb upward to the top of the glacier and look across its 
bosom, which presents a rough and jagged appearance. Pinnacles of clear 
ice with nearly perpendicular sides glisten in the sun. Deep chasms 
yawn beneath; so that it would be all one's life is worth to attempt to 
cross. The average movement of this stream of ice, as reported by Prof. 
G. Frederick Wright, of Oberlin, Ohio, is forty feet per day; seventy 
feet in the center and ten feet at the margin; discharging into the waters 
of the bay one hundred and forty millions cubic feet of the clearest of 
ice every twenty-four hours. The ship's steward availed himself of this 
free market to fill his icehouse on board, while his boarders were enjoying 
themselves on land. The face of this glacier is fast receding, as appears 
from the fact that on the east side there is a lateral moraine extending 
more than a mile from its present position. Behind this moraine there 
flows a glacier river of milky looking muddy water, such as drops from a 
grindstone when in use, the result of the grinding process going on by the 
movement of unnumbered tons of ice and rock, by nature's enginery. 
There are many wonderful facts about the Muir Glacier which are an as- 
tonishment and a pleasure to the beholder. It is a giant moving in his 
might, and in comparison w-ith it the glaciers of Switzerland are infantile. 
A view of it alone is worth a journey to Alaska; and as a Cyclopean piece 
of "bric-a-brac" in the National Museum of Wonders, it is well worth 
the extra two hundred thousand dollars paid for these Northern posses- 
sions. 



[Extract from the report of the Hon. N. H. R. Dawson, Commissioner of Education 

1887.] 

1 was a passenger on the Ancon, and passed through the famous Alex- 
ander Archipelago, studded with its thousand islands. The ship stopped 
at nearly all the villages and settlements, affording me an excellent op- 
portunity of seeing the country and conversing with its inhabitants. 

Islands, mountains, glaciers, inlets and channels appear all along this 
inland passage; the eye is delighted at every turn by a succession of most 
beautiful and picturesque scenery. The islands are never out of sight, 
and rise from the bosom of the sea like emeralds in a crown of diamonds. 
The atmosphere is so light and pure that you are hardly conscious that 
you are breathing the elixir of life. The blue waters are as smooth and 



30 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

calm as those of an Alpine lake. Ranges of lofty mountains, rich in 
forest and verdure, with snow-capped summits and glaciers covering large 
areas, are nearly always in sight. All is wild, weird and grand. Mounts 
La Perouse, Crillon and Fairweather, and many others equally imposing, 
rising from 9,000 to 15,000 feet above the level of the ocean, with im- 
mense glaciers debouching from their frozen valleys and slopes, are suc- 
cessively seen; while Edgecumbe, whose fires have slumbered for a hun- 
dred years, with its crown of volcanic scoria glistening in the sunlight, 
appears like a sleeping giant resting from his labors. From its frozen peak 
cascades come leaping down like threads of silver until lost to view in the 
forest line. 

En route I visited Nanaimo, Bella-Balla, Metlakahtla and Port Simp- 
son, in British Columbia; Ft. Tongass, Annett Island, Port Chester, Fort 
Wrangel, Loring, Juneau, Douglas Island, Chilcat and Haines. The 
steamer stopped for several hours, and parts of days, at each of these 
points. At all of these towns schools have been in operation since 1885. 

Neither pen nor pencil can paint the wonderful scenery of this part of 
our continent, with its bays, inlets and islands. It would be well for 
those who seek the delights of travel at least to acquaint themselves, first, 
with the wonderful beauties and features of this part of our continent 
before seeking them in the Old World. Its calm and placid seas, its pic- 
turesque islands, its marvelous glaciers, its magnificent ranges of lofty 
mountains are wonderful features of its beauty and grandeur. Its im- 
mense forests, the abundance of its minerals, its furs and its fisheries, all 
promise to make it one of the wealthiest portions of our American em- 
pire. 

It may not be extravagant to predict that, in the years that are to 
come, the exhaustless resources of this coast will furnish the material to 
rebuild the American shipping of the Pacific, and that these harbors will 
be the navies and havens for the commerce of half the world. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 31 



(s/i H'^rfp f© ©/il0:s^0:. 

[Extract from the San Francisco Bidletin.'] 

We left Port Townsend at midnight, and in the forenoon of the next 
day we were off Nanaimo, on our journey up the coast. The tourist will 
see, all through this wonderland, a thousand things which he can never 
describe — neither by mouth, nor pen, nor brush. There is at first a 
thrill of pleasure, mingled with awe, as one enters this almost limitless 
sweep of inland, island-studded seas. The charm of the first conscious- 
ness that you are being, without a jar or jolt, borne over these narrow 
seas, almost fathomless in their unbroken depths, winding in and out 
among tiny islands, covered with forests and veined with various miner- 
als, is well-nigh irresistible. The average tourist has no disposition to re- 
sist the spell; he surrenders unconditionally. 

But, as the scene broadens into empires and continents, and sweeps 
on and on for hundreds of miles in unbroken and unvarying grandeur, 
the prisoner chafes under the burden of his bondage. There is a surfeit 
of wonder; the mind reacts, and the traveler would hail with real pleas- 
ure the sight of something common. Indeed when the morning broke 
upon us in the little mining village of Harrisburg, there are many an old 
miner who almost wept as he recognized, in the shadow of mountains of 
eternal snow, the rude cabin of the gold-hunter, and a simultaneous ex- 
clamation of pleasant surprise broke forth from our uninitiated passengers. 

The archipelago is but the handle of the cup, so to speak, that reaches 
to the north and west — a country equal in extent to all of the United 
States east of the Mississippi River, save the States of Alabama and Miss- 
issippi. 

Lord Dufferin has pronounced the scenery of Alaska to be the sublim- 
est he has witnessed in all his ravels. He says, that while its glaciers 
and mountains are five times as large as those of the Alpine regions, 
Alaska possesses, in addition, the changeful beauty of the sea; that while 
the Alpine mountains attain their grandeur slowly, rising from the level 
by a succession of foothills, these peaks of the northland rise abruptly 
from the sea to a snow-crowned, ice-crowned height, not surpassed by 
the loftiest peaks of the Alps. 



32 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



icluresquc 



^' 



/ilersi^Cf. 



[E'roiii tlie San Francisco Chronicle.'] 

Whatever xA^laska has not, it most certainly has one feature in an emi- 
nent degree which is prized by most countries and possessed by few; its 
scenic beauties are ahnost incomparably grand, and its natural peculiari- 
ties are such that it might be called the Switzerland or Norway of Amer- 
ica, only neither of those countries is the equal of Alaska, and it is be- 
littling to our Territory to speak of it in the same breath with the hith- 
erto champion scenic attractions of the world. 

Sailing northward through the labyrinth of islands and greeted on 
every side by new, strange beauties of purely natural magnificence, one's 
admiration is constantly challenged and his stock of adequately forcible 
adjectives is exhausted even before the best features of all, the glaciers 
and the mountains of perpetual snow, are caught sight of. And when 
the dazzling peaks, rising at a bound far above the wooded hills around 
them, and the frozen rivers, wide and long, are seen, the admission can 
be easily obtained that Alaska \% par excellence the scenic store-ground of 
the world, its inlets rivaling the fjords of Norway and its glaciers those 
of Switzerland. 



YJ^e fyaturcil weallr) o| e/ilGts^et. 

[From the New York Times, October 5, 1884.] 



The lumber interests are undeveloped, but a great industry is in prom- 
ise for the future, as all southeastern Alaska from Cape Fox to the Kenai 
Peninsula is clothed with forests denser than anything in Oregon or 
Washington Territory. The comparatively mild temperature, the heavy 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 33 

rainfall, and the nightless days of the summer season, force everything to 
a tropical luxuriance. 

No forest fires ever devastate these pine-clad shores and islands, and 
one season suffices to clothe with living green undergrowth the scars of 
landslides or avalanches. The vast area of forest includes little besides 
coniferc-e. Much of the pine is as poor as Oregon pine, which is such 
bad ship timber that vessels built of it can only be insured as A No. t 
for three years. The white spruce, or Sitka pine, which grows to a 
height of 150 to 175 feet, and is from three to six feet in diameter, is the 
common tree in all these forests, and Menzies and Merton spruce, red 
and yellow cedar, pinus concorta, fir, cottonwood, ash, alder, small ma- 
ple and small birch are the other trees most frequently met with. The 
red and yellow cedar are the most valuable woods, and the latter, more 
particularly, is the only good shipbuilding timber on the Pacific Coast. 
Its value arises chiefly from the fact that it is impervious to the toredo, 
or boring worm, which eats up the pine piles under Puget Sound wharves 
every two or three years. It has a fine grain and a certain fragrance, 
and when made into chests it affords protection from moths to anything 
placed within. 

This yellow cedar is rarely found south of the Alaska boundary, and 
the largest tracts of it are on Kupreanoff, Kon, and the Prince of Wales 
Island. 

The density of the forest growth, the tangle of underbrush, and the 
thick carpet of moss that covers every inch of ground, has made mineral 
prospecting very slow and difficult. The men who discovered a ledge of 
quartz near Sitka worked ten days to clear off a small patch of ground 
over the outcroppings, and the more one sees of these dense, tangled 
forests, the more one marvels at the extensive mining region that has 
been opened up near Juneau and across on Douglas Island. 

The great mining region is at Juneau, 150 miles southeast of Sitka. 
Three small creeks on the shore of the mainland lead to basins back of 
the mountains, where rich placers have been worked for five seasons. 

On Douglas Island, opposite Juneau, the Paris or Treadwell mine is 
the great mine of Alaska. The gold-bearing ledge there is 500 feet wide, 
cropping out upon the surface and fronting like a stone quarry to the 
open air. It has been prospected by four tunnels, and a small five-stamp 
mill has been at work for three seasons. The ore is not rich, averaging 
from $9 to $50 per ton, but the decomposed quartz is easily milled, and 
the supply is inexhaustible. 



34 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



BV KATE FIELD. 

Soon after leaving Wrangel the first Alaskan glacier is seen in the dis- 
tance, looking like a frozen river emerging from the home of the clouds. 
The sea is glassy, and a procession of small bergs, broken away 
from the glacier, float silently toward the south. It is nature's dead 
march to the sun, to melt in its burning kisses, and to be transplanted 
into happy tears. Wild ducks fly past, and from his eyrie a bald-headed 
eagle surveys the scene, deeply, darkly, beautifully blue, apparently con- 
scious that he is the symbol of the republic. There are glaciers and 
glaciers. In Switzerland a glacier is a vast bed of dirty air-holed ice that 
has fastened itself, like a cold p^orus plaster, to the side of an Alp. Dis- 
tance alone lends enchantment to the view. In Alaska a glacier is a 
wonderful torrent that seems to have been suddenly frozen when about 
to plunge into the sea. Down and about mountains wind these snow- 
clad serpents; extending miles inland with as many arms sometimes as 
an octopus. Wonderfully picturesque is the Davidson glacier, but more 
extended is the Muir glacier, which marks the extreme northerly points 
of pleasure travel. Imagine a glacier three miles wide and three hundred 
feet high at its mouth. Think of Niagara Falls frozen stiff, add thirty- 
six feet to Its height, and you have a slight idea of the terminus of Muir 
glacier, in front of which your steamer anchors; picture a background of 
mountains fifteen thousand feet high, all snowclad, and then imagine a 
gorgeous sun lighting up the ice crystals with rainbow coloring. The 
face of the glacier takes on the hue of aqua marine, the hue of every bit 
of floating ice, big and little, that surround the steamer and makes navi- 
gation serious. These dazzling serpents move at the rate of sixty-four 
feet a day, tumbling headlong into the sea, and as it falh-, the ear is 
startled by submarine thunder, the echoes of which resound far and near. 
Down, down, down goes the berg, and woe to the boat in its way when 
it asain rises to the surface. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 35 



jl^poclucls of e/llctsKci. 

[From the Alaskan, Feb. 2, 1889.] 

We have to acknowledge the receipt by last mail, through the cour- 
tesy of Prof. David T. Day, Chief of Division of Mining Statistics and 
Technology, U. S. Geological Survey, a copy of the Report upon the 
Mineral Resources of the United States for the year 1887. We find 
therein enumerated for Alaska the followmg useful minerals: 

Silver glance, at Glacier Bay, m dolomitic limestone. 

Sulphide of antimony and iron at Glacier Bay, associated with silver 
and gold. 

Lignite coal, at Cape Lisburne, Arctic Coast, occasionally utilized by 
whalers and U. S. Revenue vessels. 

Galena, at Juneau, associated with pyrite and mined for gold and 
.silver; at Golovin Bay, auriferous. [We are now also aware of large 
quantities of that metal near Sitka.] 

Garnet, at the mouth of the Stikeen River, near Wrangel. 

Gold, at Juneau, Douglas Island, Silver Bow Basin, Sitka, Yakutat, 
Berner Bay, and numerous placers on tributaries of the Yukon. The 
Alaska gold fields contain free gold in quartz veins and irregular lodes, 
auriferous sulphurets and shallow placers. 

Pyrites, iron sulphurets (auriferous) at Douglas Island, mined for 
gold. 

Wire, or native silver, at Glacier Bay, associated with native copper. 

Blende, or black jack, at Juneau, mined for gold and silver. 

Gray copper, at Glacier Bay, mined for silver and gold. 

Among the '.iseful minerals, not mined, are mentioned: 

Asbestos, reported in several localities. 

Limestone, near Sitka, Killisnoo, Glacier Bay, and elsewhere. 

Native copper, in small quantities, at Glacier Bay; also at the head- 
waters of Copper River. [To our own knowledge a copper mine was 
also worked near the entrance of Kasan Bay, on Prince of Wales 
Island.] 

Plumbago, black lead, near Port Clarence, Glacier Bay, Golovin Bay 



36 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Mica, reijorted in considerable quantities at various points. 

[VV'e can also mention Red Ochre, from personal observation, in the 
islands of the Alexander Archipelago.] 

The gold production for Alaska during 1887 is given as $675,000, 
estimated. The estimate is, according to our opinion, below the mark, 
as it may be safely assumed that the returns of the Treadwell Mill on 
Douf'las Island alone reached that amount. We are justified, therefore, 
in placing the sum total for the year in question at over $1,000,000. 
Even assuming the amount as given in the report to be correct, it shows 
whal resources this region possesses, considering the very limited explo- 
ration it has thus far undergone. 



[Extract fi-om the Portland Neim.] 

Mr. Adolph Sutro, of Sutro Tunnel fame, who was here last month, 
was interviewed in Portland by a N'e7eis reporter on his return from 
•Alaska. 

He speaks thus of the country: "The glaciers of Alaska are much 
grander than those he had seen in Switzerland, and the Alaskan joui- 
ney was a succession of delightful surprises to himself and daughter." 



/Hctsi^o: e/ir)e0:d-. 



NEARLY ONE MILLION CASES OF CANNED SALMON PACKED IN SIX YEARS 

OREGON OUTSTRIPPED IN THE INDUSTRY. 



The San Francisco Bulletin thus summarizes the past year's opera- 
tions in Alaska canned salmon: 

Alaska canned salmon is to make the market of the world hereafter. 
Heretofore Oregon has held that position. A scarcity of fish in the 
Columbia River and the arbitrary action of the Fishermen's Union has 
given the lead in this business to Alaska. The industry has been a 
source of considerable prosperity to Oregon. Commencing in 1866, 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 37 

with a pack of 4,000 cases, the business has gone on developing year 
after year, until it reached over 600,000 cases. The largest pack was 
629,400 cases in 1883. Since then there has been a falling off. The 
pack for the past year was about 350,000 cases, the smallest since 1874. 
The exorbitant demands of the Union, $1.25 per fish, no doubt affected 
the supply. There is some talk of asking $1.50 next season. That is 
a more excellent way to preserve the fish and kill the business. It is 
only within the past few years that these extravagant prices have been 
asked. Prior to 1882 the average cost of the fish was never above 60c. 
apiece. When the business was first inaugurated the fishermen were 
content with 15c. per fish, and the average was never above 25c. until 
1879; yet, in the mean time the pack had been increased to over 
400,000 cases per annum. Fishermen have made more out of the busi- 
ness than the cannery men for several years. It is about time they 
changed places. 

It is worthy of note that the year which witnessed the heaviest pack 
on the Columbia River also witnessed the inauguration of the business 
in Alaska. In 1883 when the Columbia River reported a i)ack of 629,- 
400 cases, Alaska sent down 36,000 cases. Another feature of interest 
is the rapidity with which business in Alaska has been developed. It 
took the Columbia River canners from 1866 to 1875 to increase their 
pack to 375>ooo cases, with comparatively little competition in the field 
with which to contend. What took Oregon nine years to accomplish, 
Alaska has accomplished in five. Though Alaska is supposed to be in 
the icy regions, it will, evidently, be a cold day when she gets left in the 
race with Oregon to control the canned salmon trade. Her pack this 
year is practically 400,000 cases, though the receipts at this port, so far 
as we have been able to trace them, have been only 382,280 cases. The 
Alaskan canned salmon receipts at San Francisco compare as follows: 

Pack of 1883, cases 36,000 

" 1884 " 45,000 

1885 " 74,800 

1886 " 120,700 

1887 " 190,200 

1888 " : 382,300 



Total 849, 



000 



Seventeen canneries were operated in Alaska this year, and the number 
will be larger next year. The fish are small, averaging only six pounds, 
while the average of the Columbia River fish is twenty pounds, so that 



38 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

while it takes only three of the latter for a case of 48 one-pound tins, it 
takes ten of the former. The Alaska fish has less oil and is a deeper red 
than the Oregon, l)ut it is probably just as good for the stomach. The 
Alaska canners are well satisfied with the past year's business. They 
are now better fixed than ever for a successful campaign. 



"^rrjC l\oul<z- to w 0r)GlGplGrr)Gl, 



ovp:r the surface of a great salt river through 
scenes magnificent. 



TO A TREASURE VAULT OF PRECIOUS METALS — THE HOME OF THE 
GLACIER THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 



[I'rom the Alaska Free Press.'\ 

From the northwest corner of Washington, along the coast line of 
British Columbia and as far north as the city of Juneau, Alaska, nearly 
a thousand miles, a picturesque panorama of towering, precipitous 
mountains and broad rivers and bays is spread out before the ever de- 
vouring gaze of tiie traveler. Nature's noblest efforts in scenic effects 
are here displayed. It is as if the Yellowstone National Park or the 
mountainous regions of Colorado were partly sunken into the sea until 
their gulches and valleys were converted into water-ways. A grand salt- 
water river, (the Inland Passage) in places hundreds of fathoms deep, • 
with waters as clear as an Alpine lake, whose shores in places can be 
reached with a pebble thrown from the ship's side, reaches from Puget 
Sound as far up the coast as Chilkoot, Alaska, about one hundred miles 
above Juneau. An impenetrable wall of cedar, spruce and hemlock 
timber lines either shore, reaching from the water's edge to timber line 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 39 

on the mountain sides, and as far inland as the eye can reach. Taking 
our trip in the month of December, arriving at Juneau on the 23rd, we 
were agreeably surprised to find the weather only moderately cold and not 
at all uncomfortable. The valleys above the sea and lower moutains 
were entirely free from snow and covered with vegetation, not yet turned 
brown by the hard frosts of winter. Of that portion of the route above 
Juneau we cannot speak of for ourselves, never having passed over it, 
but think that the following extract from the pen of Lieutenant Schwatka 
clearly and justly portrays the most scenic portion of the route to Won- 
derland : 

"Beyond the first parallel of Sitka, though the grand scenery may be 
no more imposing than that through which the tourist will have passed 
in coming from Washington, he will find some of the curiosities of 
nature which are to be found only in the dreaded frigid zones — ice- 
bergs and glaciers. Before the waters of Northwestern Washington are 
out of sight, great patches of snow are to be seen on the highest 
of the grand mountains bordering the inland passage. These little white 
blotches in the northern gullies become larger and larger as the excursion 
steamer wends her way northward, until the loftiest peaks are crowned 
with snow. Then across connecting ridges they join their white mantles; 
and in a few more miles the blue ice of the glaciers peeps from out the 
lower edges of the deep snow. Lower and lower they descend, as the 
steamer crawls northward until the upper parts of the passage are essayed, 
when they have to come to the ocean's level, and, plunging into the sea, 
snap off at intervals and float away as icebergs, some of them higher than 
the masts of the large, commodious steamers that bear tourists to the 
fairy-land of the frigid zones, if one can be allowed to use such an ex- 
pression. Glacier Bay, which the excursion steamers visit on their sum- 
mer trips, has a great number of these frozen rivers of ice debouching 
into it; and its clear, quiet waters, reflecting the Alpine scenery of its 
shores, are ruffled only by the breaking of the icebergs froni the terminal 
fronts of the glacier, that sends waves across its whole breadth, and with 
a noise like the firing of a seacoast cannon. Muir Crlacier is the greatest 
of this grand group, and surpasses anything nearer than the polar zones 
themselves. There is no use in going into mathematical measurement — 
its two and three hundred feet in height and its breadth of several miles; 
for they but feebly rei)resent its grandeur, the deep impressions that fig- 
ures cannot measure when viewing this frozen Niagara of the North. Not 
until the blue Adriatic has pierced its way into the heart of the high 
Alps, or some ocean inlet has invaded the valleys of the vast Yellowstone 



40 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Park, will we ever have an equivalent to this display of Nature's noblest 
efforts in scenic effects. . 

"Were the other scenery as monotonous as the ceaseless plains, a visit 
to the Alaskan glaciers and icebergs would well repay any one's time and 
effort; but when the tourist travels through the greatest Wonderland of 
the wide West to reach these curious sights,. he or she will be paid over 
and over tenfold. So far everything may be seen from the decks of an 
elegant steamer; but, should the tourist want a little 'roughing it,' let him 
stop over in Glacier Bay, from one steamer's visit to another, two weeks 
to a month apart, and clamber over the glaciers and row among the ice- 
bergs to his heart's content, and until he almost imagines he is an arctic 
explorer. He will descend from the troubled surface of the frozen seas of 
ice on the glacier's surface only to wade through grass up to his waist, 
that waves in the light winds like the pretty pampas fields of South Amer- 
ica. In these fields of grasses he may pitch his tent, which, with a cook 
stove, and a month's rations for each person, is all that is needed, beyond 
the baggage of the other tourists. Hunting is found in the mountains 
back of the bay, fish in the waters, and small game in the woods near 
by. Or, if longer and rougher jaunts are wanted, ascend the Lynn 
Channel, and then the Chilcat, or Chilkoot Inlet, hiring two or three In- 
dians to carry one's camping effects on their backs to the lakes at the 
source of the great Yukon River of the British Northwest Territory and 
Alaska — the third river of America. Going up the Chilkoot trail, over 
the Alaskan Coast range of mountains, which will furnish Alpine climb- 
ing enough to suit the most eager, on snow and glacier ice, one comes to 
a series of lakes aggregating 150 miles in extent; along these he may pad- 
dle and return, shooting an occasional brown or black bear, moose, car- 
ibou or mountain goat, while acquatic life is everywhere on these pretty 
Alpine lakes. Throughout the whole inland passage one is passing now 
and then some Indian village of more or less imposing appearance and 
numbers. In Alaska they all belong to a single great tribe, the T'linkit,. 
bound together by a common language, but by no stronger ties, for each 
village, or cluster of villages, makes a sub-tribe, having no sympathies 
with the other, and they war against one another. It is not often that 
one would want to call a tourist's attention to an Indian village, for the 
average encampment or habitation of the 'noble red men' is not the most 
attractive sight or study. But in the T'linkit towns we have no such hes- 
itation, for in the curiosities to be seen in their houses and surroundings, 
they are certainly one of the strangest people on earth. They are the 
artistic savages of the world. In front of each log-house, and often 
rearing its head much higher than it by two or three fold, are one or two 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 41 

posts, called 'totem poles' which are merely logs on end; but, on the sea- 
ward face, the savage sculptor exhausted all the resources of his barbaric 
imagination in cutting in hideous faces and figures that, with a hundred 
or so such terrible 'totems' in front of the village, makes one think of 
some nightmare of his childish days. The houses, too, are carved inside 
and out. Every utensil they have is sculptured deep with diabolical but 
well-executed designs, and their spoons of mountain sheep and goat horn 
are marvels of savage work. All these are for sale to tourists, and every 
excursion steamer brings numbers of these romantic remembrances of a 
yet more romantic journey back to civilization. 

"But the inland passage to Alaska is not the only grand and picturesque 
part of that great territory visited by the excursion steamers; for beyond 
and as far as Mount St. Elias — they often sail to this, the greatest cluster 
of high mountains on the Western Continent — Lituya Peak, 10,000 feet 
high, and Fairweather and Crillon, a third taller, then beyond. Cook and 
Vancouver clustet near sublime St. Elias, nearly 20,000 feet above the 
level of the ocean that thunders at its base, and whose jagged top may 
be seen a hundred and fifty miles to sea. How disappointing are the 
Colorado peaks of 12,000 and 14,000 feet to one, for the simple reason 
that they spring from a plain already 6,000 to 8,000 feet above sea-level, 
and seem, as they are, but high hills on a high plateau. How like pig- 
mies they appear to Hood, Tacoma, Shasta, and others not so high above 
the ocean base line, but whose every foot above sea-level is in mountain 
slope. How grand, then, must be St. Elias, whose waist is the waters 
of the wide sea, and whose 20,000 feet springs from the Pacific Ocean, 
from whose calm waters we view its majestic height." 



yf)c KrlazieF JeyGry W0r)(a 



r)clep. 



[From the Alaska Free Press.~\ 



Yesterday, in company with Mr. C. E. Coon, we had the pleasure of 
examining prints taken from the negatives which were secured by R. G. 
Willoughby, of the wonderful city in Glacier Bay. This city is not real, 
but is a mirage, or the reflection of a city upon the bosom of the Pacific 
Glacier, the largest glacier in southeastern Alaska. The photographs 



42 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

show us that portion of the city directly in the foreground remarkably^ 
clear and distinct; directly in front, apparently surrounding the city, is a 
high stone wall, back of which loom up immense buildings perhaps of 
stone, of queer architecture, most of them being square with flat roofs 
and queer shaped chimneys. Not a sign of life is seen about the city, 
except that smoke can be seen issuing from a number of the chimneys,, 
and several massive buildings are clearly in course of erection. The 
streets must be very narrow, as the buildings are very closely packed to- 
gether, and have no appearance whatever of being laid off in squares or 
blocks. The city is very large, apparently extending back as far as the 
eye can reach, and is dotted all over with spires and cupolas. Mr. Wil- 
loughby informs us that he has watched this strange city appear and dis- 
appear every year since '80, which occurs during the longest days in 
June, and just as the sun is setting behind Mount Fairweather. 



THE FOLLOWING EXTRACTS ARE TAKEN FROM GOV- 

ERNOR SWINEFORD'S ANNUAL REPORT FOR THE 

FISCAL YEAR 1888. 



POPULATION. 

The white population of the Territory is principally embraced within 
the limits of what is popularly known as the southeastern section. The 
sale of several large mining properties on Douglas Island, and en the 
mainland in the neighborhood of Juneau City, upon which the work of 
development has been actively commenced, and is being vigorously pros- 
ecuted, involving as it does the erection.of an equal number of very large 
stamp-mills in the near future, has greatly stimulated the growth of that 
flourishing town, the population of which has very nearly, if not quite^ 
doubled itself during the past year. There has also been a marked in- 
crease in the white population at other points as well, particularly on the 
islands and the mainland to the west and the north of Sitka, induced by 
the utilization of the salmon fisheries, the discovery of rich gold and sil- 
ver bearing lodes, and the prospective great value of the coal measures 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 43 

•on Cook's Inlet, and elsewhere, which last are but just now beginning to 
attract the attention of capitalists. But while on my trip to the north 
and west I obtained from the records of the Greco-Russian Church, a 
statement of the number of the Creole, Aleut, and o-called "Indian" 
people mhabiting the coast from Yakutat to Cook's Inlet (exclusive of 
Copper River), the Aliask'a Peninsula, and the islands of the Kadiak and 
Aleutian Archipelagoes, which is as follows Creoles, 1,530; Aleuts, 
2,878; Indians, 3,383. In the same sections there are about 500 per- 
manent white residents and perhaps as many more transient whites, to- 
gether with from 700 to 800 Chinese, who are employed in the salmon 
canneries during the summer. There are probably from 200 to 250 white 
miners located on the Yukon River and its tributaries, and even the in- 
hospitable shore of the Arctic is not without its white population, though 
the whole number does not exceed a dozen. Personal observation, cou- 
pled with information obtained from the most reliable sources, leads me 
to the conclusion that the native population, of which it is not pretended 
that any accurate enumeration has ever been made is much larger than 
heretofore estimated. Rev. Father Tosi, a very earnest and zealous 
Catholic priest, who has passed several years on the Yukon, and who has 
established, under the auspices of his Church, a boarding-school in one 
of the central settlements between St. Michael's and.Nulato, and whose 
long residence there enables him to speak from personal knowledge con- 
cerning the country and its people, estimates the number of natives on 
the river and its tributaries, including those inhabiting the coast as far 
south as Cape Vancouver and those living on Nunivak Island, at not 
less than 10,000, and there are certainly as many more on the Kuskokvim 
and in all that vast extent of territory north of St. Michael's. Add to 
these the T'linkets of southeastern Alaska, the Copper River and interior 
people, those of St. Lawrence Island and the coast between Cape Van- 
couver and the mouth of the Kuskokvim, together with the recent acces- 
sions from British Columbia, and I do not think 35,000 would be an 
extravagant estimate of the whole number. The following is, in my 
opinion, a fairly conservative estimate of the population of the Territory 
at the present time: 

Whites fv500 

Creoles (practically white) 1,900 

Aleuts 2,950 

Natives (partially educated, and who have adopted civilized 

ways of living 3,500 

Total, civilized and serai-civilized 14,850 

Natives wholly uncivilized 35,000 

Total 49,850 



44 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Nearly all the so-called Creoles and many of the Aleuts can read and 
write, either in the English, Russian or Aleut language, while the natives 
enumerated as partially educated, etc., are to all intents and purposes 
civilized people; not in the fullest sense, it is true, but in that not a few 
of them can speak and read in English or Russian, and that all are 
devout members of one or the other of the Christian churches. 

TAXABLE PROPERTY. 

Under the existing anomalous form of local government no taxes can 
be levied in Alaska for any purpose whatever; consequently there has 
never been any enrollment of real and personal property for the pur- 
poses of taxation. No portion of the general land laws having as yet 
been extended over the whole or any part of the Territory, aside from 
a few mining claims, either lately patented or for which applications for 
patents are pending, there are only twenty-one fee-simple titles in the 
whole of Alaska, and these do not embrace a hundred acres in all. 
The property which could be taxed is at present, therefore, almost 
wholly personal, and will continue to be so until Congress by the nec- 
essary legislation makes it possible for claimants to secure titles to lands 
now occupied by them and upon which improvements have been made 
or placed to the aggregate value of millions of dollars. Placing a fair 
value on the mines already in operation and on those in ]:)rogress of 
development, as well, and taking into consideration the various indus- 
tries hereinafter referred to, including all the property usually subject to 
assessment in the States and Territories, I am inclined to think that 
$15,000,000 would be about a fair estimate of the taxable property of 
the Territory, excluding the value of the seals taken on the Pribylov 
Reservation. 

SETTLEMENT OF PUBLIC LANDS. 

With the exception of the twenty-one fee-simple titles referred to, which 
were originally given to its employees by the Russian-American Com- 
pany, and afterward confirmed by the protocol executed by the commis- 
sioners of the two countries at the time of the transfer, and claims 
taken up and recorded under the provisions of the general mining laws, 
all settlers on public lands in Alaska are mere squatters, awaiting impa- 
tiently such legislation by Congress as will enable them to secure titles. 
There are now seventeen salmon canneries and as many more fish-salt- 
ing establishments in the Territory, with many more in contemplation, 
an oil factory, sawmills, wharves, etc., all located or to be located on 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 45 

the public lands, while none of the many hundreds of actual settlers 
who have built homes for themselves in the several villages and settle- 
ments are able to obtain titles to the lots they have occupied and 
improved. Juneau City, a thriving town, with a dozen or more general 
stores, with schools, churches, newspapers, etc., presents an instance 
in this connection where hundreds of thousands of dollars have been 
expended in laying out and clearing up a townsite and in building 
upon and improving grounds to which the occupants have no estab- 
lished title, and cannot have any until Congress sees fit to extend to 
the Territory at least some of the provisions of the general land laws. 



AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 



As stated in previous reports, very little has been accomplished in 
the way of agricultural development. There are not, to my knowledge, 
any practical farmers or gardeners in Alaska, though here and there 
a "ranch" has been started for the growing of root crops, while in 
nearly all the settlements are to be found carelessly cultivated gardens, 
in some of which many of the vegetables are grown to perfection at the 
expense of very little labor. Lideed, while the proportion of tillable 
land in southeastern Alaska is comparatively small, it is nevertheless 
possessed of a rich soil, in which most ordinary garden vegetables can be 
grown to maturity, though, owing to the low temperature and excessive 
moisture, the seasons in which grain might be expected to ripen 
would be necessarily few and far between. This however, is a con- 
dition prevalent, so far as my observation extends, only on the islands 
and immediate coast of the southeastern section and perhaps on a few 
of the Aleutian Islands; it does not obtain in the interior, where, I am 
reliably informed, there are large bodies of arable lands on which there 
is a luxuriant growth of wild vegetation, nor along the coast to the north 
and west of Sitka. It is not generally understood, yet it is nevertheless 
true, that while the winters in all those parts of Alaska beyond the 
influence of the warm ocean currents are excessively cold, the summer's 
heat is correspondingly intense. So, along the coast to the north and 
west of Sitka, notably at Cook's Inlet, though the winters are colder 
than those of the southeastern section, the summers are much warmer 
and drier, thus affording climatic conditions far more favorable to agri- 
culture and horticulture. Careful personal observations made during my 
trip to the westward the past summer confirmed and strengthened the 



46 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

opinion heretofore expressed, to the effect that there is not only a large 
acreage of tillable lands in the Territory, with a climate not at all inimical 
to the successful cultivation of most garden vegetables, but that in many 
localities, particularly along the coast to the northwest of Sitka, on Cook's 
Inlet, and some of the islands, all the cereals, except corn, can, with 
proper care, be grown to perfection. 



STOCK-RAISING. 



Very little has been done in the way of stock-raising, though there are 
very large areas of most excellent grazing land in the territory, notably 
on the great islands of the Kodiak and Aleutian Archipelagoes. At 
nearly all the settlements on the Kodiak Islands and in Cook's Inlet I 
found white and Creole people keeping cows and making their own butter, 
and I can see no reason, except the absence of a market, why Alaska 
might not rival Montana or Wyoming in the raising of stock. There is 
all along the coast and on most of the islands a luxuriant growth of 
nutritious wild grasses, such as blue-joint, red-top and wood-meadow 
grass, upon which millions of cattle and sheep might subsist themselves 
the whole year round, with a less percentage of loss than is usual in the 
territories named, the winters on the coast of the mainland and islands 
south of the sixtieth degree of latitude being much less severe than those 
of the Northern and Western States. The temperature rarely falls below 
Zero in the sections referred to, sixteen degrees above being the coldest 
weather experienced at Oonalaska during the whole of last winter. I saw 
numbers of cattle at Cook's Inlet, Kodiak, Afognak, Spruce and Wood 
Islands, Unga, Belkofsky, and Oonalaska early in June, all in the finest 
possible condition, notwithstanding, I was told, they had been kept 
through the winter practically without being housed or fed. 



MINES AND MINERALS. 



Considerable progress has been made since my last report in the 
development of the mineral resources of the territory. The great stamp- 
mill on Douglas Island, of which mention has been made in former 
reports, is now the largest plant of the kind in the world, the number of 
batteries having been doubled during the past year. There are now two 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 47 

hundred and forty heads in operation, all under one roof, and besides 
being the largest, the mill is conceded to be the most complete and 
perfect in all its appointments, of any ever built in this or any other 
country. I am not in possession of accurate information concerning its 
output of gold bullion, but from that which I deem most reliable, I think 
I am safe in estimating it at not less than $150,000 per month. 

Several sales of prospectively large and valuable gold-mining properties 
to Eastern and European capitalists have been consummated during the 
past summer, and a number of other large stamp-mills for the reduction 
of the ores are reasonably certain to be erected and put into operation in 
the very near future. One of these transfers embraced four claims on 
Douglas Island, the consideration named in the deeds aggregating 
$1,5000,000, The work of development on these properties, one of 
which adjoins the celebrated Paris mine, is in active progress, and at 
several others working tunnels are being driven into the mountain sides 
with a view to the opening up of gold-bearing ledges, believed to be of 
great size and value. The same company has been actively at work 
during the past summer opening what is claimed to be a very rich lode 
in the Silver Bow Basin, about four miles distant from Juneau on the 
mainland, to work the ores from which it has a mill with a capacity for 
treating one hundred tons per day in course of erection, and which it 
expects to have in operation early next spring. Two or three small mills 
have been at work in the same vicinity, where some hydraulic mining has 
also been done with, I have been told, satisfactory results. In addition 
^o this a large amount of development work has been carried on with a 
view of opening up some promising lodes of high-grade ore, of which 
there are quite a number in the Silver Bow Basin. Indeed it is believed, 
and with good reason, that this particular locality will ere long be devel- 
oped into one of the most prolific gold fields in the world; the indica- 
tions certainly point in that direction. 

In the Berner Bay district development has been carried far enough 
forward to demonstrate to a certainty the fact that the lodes are strong, 
well defined, and unusually rich; the erection of a number of mills in 
that locality appears to be a question of short time only. Promising 
silver discoveries are also reported to have been made in the same district, 
while a vein of that mineral recently opened on an island in Glacier Bay 
is said to be yielding results far beyond the most sanguine anticipations 
of the owners. 

Numerous new discoveries are announced from various parts of south- 
eastern Alaska. One of these, not far from Juneau City, promises the 



48 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

addition of a number of valuable mines to those already opened or in 
progress of development. The discovery located, on one of the branches 
of Sheep Creek, which last empties into Gastinaux Channel, nearly 
opposite the big mill on Douglas Island, is believed to be an extension 
of the Silver Bow Basin belt, though in some of the lodes silver pre- 
dominates, which is not the case with those of the Silver Bow Basin. 
The ore carries galena, zinc blende, and copper pyrites, the assays show- 
ing well in gold, with a very large percentage of silver. This, of course, 
is not a free milling ore and will have to be treated in a smelting furnace; 
but in other lodes in the same belt, believed to be equally as rich, the 
ores are simply a free milling quartz in which the native gold can readily 
be seen without the aid of a magnifying glass. I regard this as one of 
the most promising discoveries thus far made in the Territory, but it is, 
along with the many others reported from other sections, merely corrobor- 
ative of the opinions heretofore advanced in regard to the wide diffusion 
of the precious metals throughout Alaska, and to refer to these numerous 
discoveries in detail would be to stretch this report out to the dimensions 
of a goodly sized volume. 

In the Sitka district a small mill was put into operation late in the sum- 
mer, but did no more than run through a leaky mortar something less than 
a hundred tons of ore from the mine heretofore mentioned as belonging 
to a Wisconsin company, with results only partially satisfactory. While 
the mill test, so far as it can be considered such, was not in all respects 
satisfactory, it was sufficient to demonstrate the fact that the gold is there 
in paying quantity, and at the same time the work in the mine proved the 
size of the lode to be such as to call for a mill with four or five times the 
capacity of the present plant. Of the very great value of this property 
not only, but of other lodes in the same district, I am fully convinced, 
notwithstanding the not altogether satisfactory results attending this first 
attempt at a practical mill test. 

Among the few promising discoveries I have been able to personally 
visit and examine are those on Unga Island. Here the work of develop-' 
ment has progressed far enough to demonstrate to a reasonable certainty 
the character and value of the lodes, and a personal inspection of the 
various workings inclines me strongly to the btiief that a number of val- 
uable mines are sure to follow the judicious expenditure of a comparative- 
ly small amount of capital. Several San Francisco companies have been 
formed for the purpose of developing a dozen or more claims on the is- 
Lind, and when I called there in July work was in active progress at four 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 49 

or five different locations. The veins are in the porphyry formation, and 
have the appearance of true fissures, the ore being an auriferous and ar- 
gentiferous galena, carrying about equal parts of gold and silver and from 
30 to 70 per cent lead. At one mine I saw several hundred tons of this 
ore already mined and sacked, ready for shipment to the smelting furnace 
in San Francisco, and was shown returns from a trial lot of fifty tons pre- 
viously sent away, from which it appeared that it had netted the miners 
a little more than $40 per ton over cost of mining and transportation. I 
visited several of the locations, and found the ore uniformly of one and 
the same character throughout and the veins of good workable size. A 
district has been organized under the provisions of the general mining 
laws, and up to the 5th of July fifty-three claims have been made and 
recorded. 

Similar discoveries are reported on the mainland within the same dis- 
trict, but of their prospective value I have no knowledge, except from 
hearsay. On Oonalaska Island, not far from the village, a gold and silver 
bearing quartz ledge was at the time of my visit being prospected with 
some promise of success. All I saw, however, was the broken-up out- 
crop, an exploration drift then in progress not having reached the vein 
within the distance it was expected to be found inclosed between regular 
and well-defined walls; consequently I do not care to venture any opinion, 
further than to say that much of the quartz in the outcrop looks as if it 
might contain considerable mineral. 

In my last annual report I referred at some length to the reported dis- 
covery of gold in paying quantities in the so-called black sands on the 
the shores of Yakutat Bay and of the ocean in that vicinity. My state- 
ments were based upon the fact that a considerable quantity of the sand 
was brought to Sitka by the parties then named by me, which, on wash- 
ing, showed gold apparently in sufificient quantity to pay, while assays 
gave $40 to the ton. Stimulated by the reports brought down by the 
men referred to as to the great quantities of the sand in question, and 
believing, as I myself did, the statements made as to the wealth of gold it 
contained, a considerable number of miners and prospectors left Sitka and 
Juneau early last spring, and made their way along the coast in small 
boats and canoes to where they expected to find a new El Dorado. 
They found gold in the sands as reported, it is true, but not in sufficient 
quantities to pay, washing with pan or rocker. A personal investigation, 
made last June, convinced me that while fair wages might be made with 
the proper appliances for washing, the statements that had previously 
been made concerning the auriferous character of these sands were great- 



50 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

ly exaggerated. While at Yakutat I found but one party at work, all the 
others having abandoned the diggings in disgust, though it is fair to say 
that none except the parties who were at work had gone there properly 
equipped to succeed had the sands contained even more gold than first 
reports claimed. The party remaining had two of Bancroft's rotary hand 
amalgamators at work, one of which had just been started and from which 
no results had been secured. From the other, working eleven days, of 
ten hours each, with native labor, ten and a half ounces of retorted gold 
had been secured, at a cost of less than $ioo. It was estimated that 
with the additional machine double the quantity of gold could be secured 
at an increased cost of not more than 50 per cent. This would have in- 
sured good wages, at least, and there was and is scarcely any limit to the 
quantity of this gold-bearing sand. The parties continued operations 
and were doing fairly well until they suddenly found they were getting 
little, if any, gold. On investigation they found the cause a novel one. 
The waves had cast upon the beach thousands of very large dogfish, 
leaving them to die. The oil from these fish, frying out under the influ- 
ence of the sun's hot rays, had permeated the sand, and operated to pre- 
vent the quicksilver on the plates from picking up the gold, which was 
consequently carried away in the tailings. Selecting sand not thus ren- 
dered impossible of treatment by the means at hand, they were again se- 
curing gold enough to pay, when a tidal wave swept into the bay and 
washed away all the golden sands within reach, and operations were sus- 
pended. In my opinion it is just possible for industrious men to make 
fair wages working similar sands along the coast, using the proper appli- 
ances, but it will be a waste of time to attempt it with the means ordi- 
narily employed by placer miners. 

What appears to me a most promising silver-mining district is that of 
Golovin Bay, or rather of Fish River, a stream which empties into the 
bay of that name. A mine from which several hundred tons of very rich 
ore was taken two or three years ago, and at which operations were sus- 
pended, owing to the death of the principal owners by drowning while on 
their way down with a cargo of ore, is being reopened by a San Francisco 
company with every promise of a most successful outcome. This silver 
belt is located in the mountain range of the broad peninsula vt^hich pro- 
jects itself to the westward between Behring Sea on the south and the 
Arctic Ocean on the north, and in latitude 65'^. It is about thirty miles 
distant from the navigable waters of Golovin Bay, which is a branch or 
arm of Norton Sound, and the only disadvantage, so far as I can learn, 
is that the ore has to be packed some miles to the river and thence trans- 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 51 

ported in light-draught boats to the head of ocean navigation. However, 
the company has placed a light-draught steam-tug, for towing purposes, 
on the river, so that part of the transportation will not be as laborious 
and expensive as might be surmised. I v/as unable, much as I desired, 
to visit the mine, but while at St. Michael's last month (September), on 
my way back from the Arctic settlements, I met the superintendent and 
a couple of miners who had been employed in the mine. The superin- 
tendent had come to that place in a schooner owned or chartered by his 
company, for winter supplies, and had on board about 30 tons of the ore, 
intending to take on 20 tons more when he arrived back at the anchor- 
age in Golovin Bay, and dispatch the vessel thence to San Francisco. I 
obtained specimens of the ore, which I think is the iinest I have ever 
seen anywhere. It is an argentiferous galena, carrying all the way from 
70 to 85 per cent, of pure lead, and from $100 to $250 silver to the ton. 
The miners stated that at the time they left, the vein, which is six feet 
wide, had just been struck through a new tunnel driven into the south 
side of the ridge, the first one being on the north side and too much ex- 
posed to enable the miners to work with ordinary comfort during the win- 
ter. They assured me that the ore on board the schooner was a fair sample 
of the whole width of the lode, and that it was their belief that this silver 
belt would be found extending through the whole length of the mountain 
range between the head of Norton Sound and Port Clarence. An ore that 
is all but from 10 to 15 per cent, mineral is something remarkable, even 
though the great bulk be a base metal, which alone would not pay the 
cost of mining and transportation to market. Yet, if the lead be ex- 
cluded as of no value whatever, this mine, should the lode be found an 
ordinarily durable one, cannot fail to prove immensely profitable for the 
silver alone; and the fair inference is that other veins equally as rich 
may be found in its near vicinity. 

I am not in possession of any accurate and reliable information con- 
cerning the placer diggings on the Upper Yukon and its tributaries. A 
large majority of the miners I have spoken of as having been brought 
away from St. Michael's by the Thetis went into the Yukon country last 
spring, crossing the range of mountains from the head of Dyah Inlet, 
and had done practically nothing save to float down the river from its 
headwaters without stopping anywhere to dig or prospect for gold. Their 
objective point, when starting, was the Shitando River — the "Forty-Mile 
Creek" of the miners — arriving at the mouth of which they found a stam- 
pede of miners in progress, induced by a report that much richer placer 
ground had been struck on another tributary of the great river, some 



52 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

hundreds of miles nearer its delta, and carried away with the excitement 
they continued on down to where the new discovery was reported to have 
been made. It is characteristic of the average placer miner to desert 
any diggings, however rich, on the least authenticated report of others 
still richer having been found farther along, and these found, as fre- 
quently happens, the reputed discovery of "coarse gold" a myth. The 
few who had preceded them to the place were coming down the stream, 
and all asserting that there was not sufficient gold in its banks and bars 
to pay, and, being short of supplies, joined by a few of the others, they 
proceeded on down the river to the nearest trading station only to find it 
closed, and there was no alternative but to continue on to St. Michael's, 
where, fortunately, the Thetis found them. Among these miners were 
perhaps a dozen who had worked on the bars of the Shitando during the 
summer of 1887, but who left before any work could be done last spring. 
These few had with them several thousand dollars in gold-dust, notwith- 
standing they had been obliged to part with a large share of their hard 
earnings for last winter's supply of clothing and provisions; none of the 
others had done any mining and all were wholly without means, while 
some of them did not have sufficient clothing to much more than hide 
their nakedness. Judging from the amount of dust in the party, and 
estimating what it must have cost them to live through the winter from 
the prices charged them by the Alaska Commercial Company's traders — 
some of the bills paid being now before me — I am inclined to believe the 
Shitando River gravel deposits full as lich as they have been reported, 
and shall not be surprised to hear that most of those who remained dur- 
ing last summer have done exceedingly well. This belief is strengthened 
by the statement of the Alaska Commercial Company's agent at St. 
Michael's to the effect that the company's traders had sent or brought 
down $49,000 in gold dust, which had been taken from the miners in 
exchange for supplies last fall and winter. As nearly as I can ascertain, 
about a hundred miners will remain on the Shitando the coming winter, 
which they would hardly do were they not making money. Some of those 
who came down by the Thetis declared their intention to return as soon as 
they could make arrangements for the transportation of engines and pumps 
for sluicing purposes, to the mouth of the river on which the diggings are 
located. All who had spent a season in the country were emphatic in the 
assertion that at least good wages could be made but for the high prices min- 
ers were compelled to pay for the necessaries of life. It is impossible for 
the miner going into the country over the difficult and dangerous trail from 
the head of Dyah Inlet to carry with him any considerable quantity of 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 53 

supplies, and when he gets to the diggings he is necessarily dependent 
to a very large extent upon the traders for the means of subsistence. The 
prices charged them by these traders render it unprofitable to work in 
gravel yielding less than $10 per day to the man; hence many bars that 
would pay under ordinary circumstances are abandoned as soon as it is 
ascertained that they do not pan out that amount. It can readily be 
seen that with flour at $35 per barrel, bacon 40 cents per pound, com- 
mon sugar 30, beans 20, rice 25, lard 35, crackers 25, butter 75 cents, 
and everything else in proportion, a man only working about three 
months must necessarily earn pretty large daily wages in order to have 
anything left after paying for a whole year's supply of provisions. I have 
every confidence that when the conditions shall so obtain that people 
going to the Yukon country will be able to obtain supplies at fair living 
prices, a great many gravel deposits will be found and worked that would 
not now be considered sufficiently auriferous to merit more than casual 
attention. 

That other minerals besides gold and silver are abundant in various 
parts of the Territory I feel reasonably well assured. A large vein of 
very rich copper ore (red sulphide) has been found on Kodiak Island, 
not far from tide-water, while the same metal in its native state is known 
to exist on Copper River, the natives say, in large bodies. Petroleum is 
reported from different sections, and from what I have seen of the coal 
measures, I am very much inclined to believe in the truth of the reports. 
Indeed, I am of the candid opinion that future research will show the 
occurrence in Alaska of almost every known mineral. While at Cape 
Prince of Wales, the most westerly point of the continent, at Hotham 
Inlet, in the Arctic, and at Port Clarence, the natives brought me nu- 
merous specimens of graphite, which appeared to be nearly pure carbon, 
of which they said there was a "great plenty" in the adjoining moun- 
tains. Amber also exists, and I have been solicited to go with parties 
who offer to show me where it can' be had in any desired quantity, while 
it is claimed that sulphur is found in connection with the numerous vol- 
canic peaks and extinct craters. Iron is known to be abundant, cinna- 
bar is reported to have been found in the Kuskovim region, while I have 
seen very fine specimens of mica obtained from a ledge in the Sitka dis- 
trict, upon which a claim has been made and recorded. Marble 
abounds; there is every evidence of the existence of valuable slate beds; 
fire-clay is found in connection with the coal seams, and kaolin is among 
the discoveries reported. Of course it will be years before all these ele- 
ments of substantial wealth are developed and utilized; indeed, I should 



54 ALL ABOUT ALASKA, 

not be surprised, could I live to watch the course of events until that 
time, were the two generations predicted by Mr. Seward to pass away 
and another be added to it before the skeptical American public can be 
educated up to a full appreciation of the wealth of Alaska in undeveloped 
resources. 

But I am now prepared to assert positively that the mineral, if that be 
the proper name for it, the mining and marketing of which is destined to 
constitute one of the most important of Alaska's coming great industries 
is that of 



COAL. 



I have heretofore referred in my reports to the coal seams on Admi- 
ralty Island, where some feeble efforts at development have been made, 
and also to those reported to have been found on Kuiu and Prince of 
Wales Islands. As yet no practical results have been attained through 
the spasmodic efforts made to open mines at any of these points, though 
I am told that parties backed by plenty of capital are now working sys- 
tematically on the last-named island, where the coal is of excellent good 
quality, with every prospect of success. The attention of the Pacific 
slope is being largely directed to Alaska for a better and cheaper supply 
of fuel, and I have every confidence in the belief that ere long Alaska 
coal will be mined in sufficient quantity to answer all the demands of 
this coast. 

The existence of large veins of coal on the east shore of Cook's Inlet 
was first reported by Cook and the other early navigators of the North 
Pacific, and was known to the Russians during their occupancy of the 
country, the Russian-American Company having for a number of years 
rained all the coal used in the Territory for steam and domestic pur- 
poses, at Port Graham. During my cruise in the Thetis I was afforded 
an opportunity of examining the seams at Coal Bay, which is a safe har- 
bor, formed by a long, narrow tongue of land stretching out to the south- 
ward between the waters of Kachemak Gulf and Chugaghic Bay, the last 
two forming a connected arm of the great' inlet. Coal Bay is situated 
about twenty-five miles northeast from Port Graham, the place where the 
Russian-American Company's mine was located, and the coal is pre- 
sumably of the same kind and quality. I experienced no difficulty 
whatever in finding the veins, the outcrops of which protrude from the 
face of a perpendicular bluff near to the water's edge, and are so promi- 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 55 

nent that they can be seen from a distance of a mile or more. The 
coal, so far as it can be seen, lies in three separate and distinct veins or 
seams, and is in a sandstone formation which dips to the northwest at an 
inclination of from three to five degrees from the horizontal. The expo-t 
sures made by the waves dashing against the bluff are, at the highest 
point, above highwater mark, but the dip carries the seams under the 
water in a very short distance to the north, though the strike is toward 
the high land not far away, the submerged outcrops merely extending 
across a small indentation which forms the inner part of the bay. These 
veins lie one above the other, with two or three feet of fire-clay lying 
above and underneath the middle one. The lower coal vein is at least 
eight feet thick; above it is a stratum of fire-clay, immediately above that 
another vein of coal five feet thick, then another layer of fire-clay, and 
above that still another vein of coal about three feet in thickness. Hun- 
dreds of tons of this coal lie scattered along the beach, having been de^ 
tached from the veins by the action of wind and wave. It is, to all ap- 
pearances, a very fine quality of cannel coal, and that there is an exten- 
sive field of it is readily seen. With a small crowbar the parties with me 
dug out several hundred pounds, which, together with some detached 
pieces picked up from the beach, was taken on board the ship, where a 
part of it was burned in the cabin grate with the most satisfactory results. 
During the summer coal of apparent good quality was discovered on 
Yakutat Bay, about 200 miles northwest of Sitka, and the discoverers are 
now at work getting out a small cargo for the local market. This coal 
lies back some distance from tide-water, but its closer proximity to a 
market, should the coal prove of marketable quality, will offset that dis- 
advantage. 

Some coal is being mined at Coal Harbor, Unga Island, and I brought 
home with me a sackful from a vein which is being opened at Chiknik 
Bay, and indentation of the south shore of Aliaska Peninsula, which I 
found on trial in the grate far superior to the Vancouver Island coal for 
domestic use. Large seams are also reported at Pavloff and Coal bays 
on the south, and at Ugashik, on the north side of the same peninsula. 
On the Nushegak River, though I saw no exposures, the indications of 
coal are unmistakable. While at Port Clarence, which is only about a 
hundred miles this side of Behring Strait, a more than ordinarily intelli- 
gent native, who could speak some English, was very anxious to have 
nie go with him half a day's journey up the river which empties into 
Grantley harbor, an inner basin of the larger bay, to see, as he expressed 
it, a whole mountain of coal — " make heap, plenty, big fire." The 



56 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

Yukon miners tell of immense outcropping seams on that river and its 
tributaries, samples of which have been brought to me, but the quality of 
which I have not been able to determine. 



FORESTS AND PRODUCTION OF LUMBER. 



Though there are vast and seemingly interminable forests of valuable 
timber in Alaska, there are not to exceed half a dozen saw- mills engaged 
in cutting lumber, and they only partially supply the local demand. The 
timber is principally spruce-pine, red and yellow cedar, and hemlock, all 
of which attain a large size, especially in the valleys and along the creeks 
and rivers. The fact that the trees growing immediately on the coast of 
the mainland and of the islands are generally small and low-limbed leads 
casual observers, looking at the country from the deck of a passing steam- 
ship, to the conclusion that there cannot be any really good timber in 
the territory; but a very short walk back from the coast from any one of 
hundreds of points which might be named would, I am sure, disabuse 
their minds in that regard. I have seen many groves of timber — -how 
extensive they are I do not know, having penetrated but a short way into 
them — in which there are trees of the spruce-pine at least eight feet in 
diameter, straight, and without a limb below a height of from 50 to 75 
feet. This spruce-pine makes excellent lumber, very similar in appear- 
ance to the Georgia pine, full as hard, and, I think, susceptible of as fine 
a polish. The red and yellow cedar is not so plentiful, but the latter 
especially is much more valuable and sure to be much sought after as 
soon as its exportation is made permissible by law. Under existing 
conditions very few persons care to invest their means in the erection of 
lumber-mills, the regulations made by the Department relative to the 
cutting of timber from the public lands for the domestic supply of lumber 
prescribing conditions which they think too ironclad and as a consequence 
by much the larger half of the lumber consumed in the territory is im- 
ported from Oregon and Washington. That the timber of Alaska will 
ultimately come into recognition as a natural, resource of very large 
importance is not to be doubted; but as long as the lands upon which it 
stands are kept beyond the reach of purchasers, comparatively little of it 
is likely to be made into lumber, the domestic supply alone being taken 
into consideration. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 57 

FISH AND FISHERIES. 

I can add very little of a general character to what I have already 
reported in regard to the great extent and value of the Alaskan fisheries. 
There are now built and in operation seventeen salmon canneries, some 
of them very large establishments, nearly all having salting houses in 
connection; the cod fishing fleet is steadily increasing, while the abund- 
ance and excellent quality of the North Pacific halibut is beginning to 
attract the attention of Eastern fishermen, some of whom have made 
arrangements to establish fishing and curing stations at once — in fact, 
during the past summer several consignments of Alaska halibut were 
made to Eastern cities, including Boston, in refrigerator cars, while a 
larger amount in flitch was sent to the same markets with profits to the 
fisherman. The fresh halibut shipped to the Eastern cities was, in round 
figures, 195,000 pounds; salted 235,000 pounds — a very good beginning, 
more especially as it has served to demonstrate the superior excellence 
of this, one of the many kinds of food fishes which abound in Alaskan 
waters. 

The salmon pack — and I have accurate figures from nearly all. the 
canneries — amounted to a little over 440,000 cases, of 4 dozen one- 
pound tins each, and about 15,000 barrels salted, the whole amounting 
to no less than 24,120,000 pounds, equal to 12,060 tons. Something 
over forty vessels, steam and sail, were employed in whaling this year, 
five of which were wrecked in a gale at Point Barrow; but I am informed 
that the number and value of whales taken were about the same as last 
year. The catch of cod was expected to reach 6,000,000 pounds, but 1 
have not been able to obtain the exact figures. Including the product of 
the whale fisheries, and assuming the catch of cod to have been as 
reported above, a very conservative estimate of market values will show 
the neat sum of not less than $4,000,000 as the result of one year's fishing 
in Alaska, notwithstanding the fact that the industry is in its infancy. 
As showing the progress which is being made in the development of this 
one important resource, I quote the following statement of the pack since 
the first demand was made for Alaska salmon: 

Ye;irs. Cases. 

1883 36,000 

1884 45,000 

1885 75,000 

18J8 130,000 

1887 240,000 

1888 44(t000 



58 ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

This shows a most rapid increase, but it will be followed by another 
equally as great next year. A number of new canneries are being 
established, two of them larger than any now in operation, while others 
are in contemplation and will most probably be built the coming winter. 

COMMERCE. 

The commerce of the Territory is only such as principally grows out 
of and is intimately connected with its fisheries, fur trade, and mining 
enterprises, the whole giving employment to a fleet of about twenty 
steam and fifty sailing vessels, plying between the ports, of California, 
Oregon, and Washington, and those of Alaska, besides numerous 
smaller craft. Its extent may be inferred from the following careful, 
and I think altogether conservative, estimate of the value of her prod- 
ucts, all of which, except the lumber, may be classed as exports, com- 
pared with which the imports are of trifling importance : 

Fisli, oil, bone, and ivory $4,000,000 

Furs 3,0J0,U()0 

. Gold (biilliun, ore and dust) 2,000,000 

Silver 50,000 

Lumber 50,000 

Total $'.»,:00,000 

EDUCATION. 

There are, or ought to be, thirteen public schools in the Territory, viz: 
Two at Sitka, two at Juneau, and one each at Oonga, Kodiak, Afognak, 
Chilcat, Killisnoo, Wrangel, Klawak, Howkan and Metlakahtla. All 
these schools are in operation, unless that at Oonga be an exception. 
The teacher who had been employed for a couple of years at that place 
abandoned his post early last spring, and the board of education has no 
information as to whether his successor, who was appointed in ample 
time, has yet arrived there and entered u[Jon the disctiarge of his duties. 
The salaries paid these teachers for the year of nine months will aggregate 
a little over $ii,ooo. In addition to these public day schools there is an 
industrial training school at Sitka with about one hundred and eighty na- 
tive pupils of both sexes, which is in large part supported by the Govern- 
ment, and one established on Douglas Island by the Friends' Church 
Society, to which the board of education is giving some pecuniary assist- 
ance. The Catholics have established schools at Juneau City and Nulato 
and Kosorifsky, on the Yukon, the latter a home as well for native 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



59 



children. There are two other schools on the Yukon, established and 
maintained under the auspices of the Episcopal Church, one of which is 
at Anvik, and the other at a point- about loo miles below Fort Yukon. 
The Moravians have mission schools at Bethel, on the Kuskovim, and at 
Carmel, on the Nushegak Rivers; and the Swedish Lutherans have one 
at Yakutat, and another at Unalakleet, some sixty miles north of St. 
Michael's. The Alaska Commercial Company maintains schools on the 
islands of St Paul and St. George, in accordance with the terms of its 
contract; and last, but not least, are seventeen schools supported by the 
Russian Government through the medium of its established church. To 
sum up, there are fifteen schools in the Territory which are whoUy or in 
part supported by the Government, eleven that are maintained by the 
Christian denominations of our own country, and seventeen under the 
auspices of the Greek church, which, together with its schools in Alaska, 
cost the Government of Russia about $60,000 annually. 

LABOR SUPPLY. 

No difficulty has been experienced during the past year on account of 
either a deficiency or surplus in the labor supply. The bulk of the labor 
employed in the fisheries and canning establishments is imported from 
year to year, and is, therefore, only temporary in character — the men, 
principally Chinese, being brought from San Francisco and other points 
along the coast in the spring, and returned home again in the fall. Some 
native labor is employed, it is true, in this industry, but it is considered 
unreliable and not to be depended on in an emergency, and, as a conse- 
quence, the operators are compelled to bring with them men to perform 
labor they would be glad to give the natives could they be assured of their 
steady and faithful services. A large part of the common labor employed 
at and around the mines, however, is drawn from the native population, 
the native laborer being reliable enough when once he is made to under- 
stand that his services are not absolutely indispensable to his employer, 
and. that if he is irregular his place will be given to another. In the case 
of the fisheries, they understand that the work must all be done within a 
certain period — during the salmon run — and should the owners of can- 
neries and salting establishments fail to provide a safeguard by importing 
a sufficient number of whites and Chinese, and depend wholly on native 
labor, the latter would certainly take advantage of the fact and refuse to 
work except at exorbitant Wages. At the mines it is wholly different. 
There the natives constitute the safeguard, and are relied upon to fill 



6o ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 

almost any labor gap in case of emergency. As a general thing they are 
industrious, quick to learn, and good workers. While there are enough 
of them ordinarily to supply the demand for common labor, it would not 
be safe to depend upon them entirely; a favorable opportunity presenting 
itself, they are just as prone and quick as their white brethren to inaugu- 
rate a strike for higher wages. 

The supply of intelligent white and skilled labor is generally equal to 
the demand, the wages paid being such as to secure the steady, faithful 
services of employees, at least until such time as they have, earned and 
saved sufficient money either to set themselves up in business or go pros- 
pecting on their own account. Recognizing the situation-, however — the 
remoteness of the district from the labor centers — those who inaugurate 
new mining enterprises very generally bring with them all the skilled la- 
bor they need, whereby the supply is always kept equal to the demand. 
Under the circumstances I would not feel warranted in advising either 
mechanics or workingmen to come to Alaska with any reasonable certainty 
of finding employment; certainly none should come unless they bring 
with them sufficient means to take them back to the States in case of 
disappointment, or are prepared to "rough it" in prospecting for minerals. 
Until a much larger capital is enlisted in the development of its mineral 
and other natural resources, there is not likely to be a very active demand 
for labor, skilled or unskilled, in Alaska. 

CONDITION OF THE NATIVES. 

I can add very little to what I have already reported in regard to the 
condition of the so-called Indians in Alaska. The native people of the 
Territory are not Indians in the common acceptation of the term; they 
are wholly unlike the typical North American Indian in personal appear- 
ance, habits and customs. Their features are of the Mongolian cast; 
and, as compared with the red men of the States and Territories, they 
are naturally bright, intelligent people; they are industrious, shrewd, 
keen traders, and among them can be found some fairly good mechanics, 
and many skillful carvers in wood, ivory, and gold and silver. At some 
of the western and northern settlements I obtained specimens of their 
work in the shape of ivory pipes, paper-knives, salad-forks, salt spoons, 
and a guard chain carved out of a single piece of walrus tusk, the work- 
manship and finish of which cannot be excelled. Left wholly to them- 
selves, they would be an independent, self-sustaining, if not altogether 
happy people. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 6r 



MAir, FACILITIES. 



Though the mail facilities of Alaska have been enlarged to some extent, 
they are still far from being adequate to the business wants and necessi- 
ties of her people. There are but two mail routes being operated in the 
whole Territory, one from Port Townsend to Sitka, via Loring, Wrangel, 
Juneau, and Killisnoo— over which the mail was carried three times a 
month during the past summer, but is no'.v reduced to twice a month under 
an elastic sort of agreement with the contractors, which provides that a mail 
shall be carried on every steamer running on the route, not to exceed 
four in all — and one from Wrangel to Houcan, via Shakan and Klawak, 
with monthly service. 

LEGISLATION. 

The altogether anomalous act providing a civil government tor Alaska 
expressly witholds from her people not only the right of representation in 
the popular branch of Congress, but the privelege of local legislation as 
well, though she has a larger civilized population than any other Territory 
could claim at the time of its organization, with, I believe, the single ex- 
ception cf New Mexico; this, too, notwithstanding the fact that her re- 
moteness from the center of government ought, it would seem, to have 
appealed much more loudly and effectively to Congress than in almost 
any other instance for the granting of political rights and privileges so es- 
sential to the welfare and progress of a new country. Alaska presents 
the only instance in the history of the United States where the right of 
representation and of local legislation has been denied to or witheld from 
any section of the country, or veriest fraction of the American people. 
A country denied all political rights not only, but in which ssttlement 
upon the public lands, if not expressly prohibited, is restricted by the 
neglect or refusal of the governing power to provide a way by which 
honest, bona fide settlers can acquire titles to the homes they build for 
themselves at the expense of much toil and privation, cannot be expected 
to develop very rapidly in wealth and population. Yet that is the con- 
dition of Alaska to-day, after the lapse of over twenty years of govern- 
mental wrong and neglect. 



62 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 



Meteorological summary for the year ending September 30, 1888, of observations taken on 
board the U. S. S. Pinta, stationed in southeast Alaska. 





Mean temperatures. 


1^ 

as . 


Sal 




Months. 


Local time. 


Is 


bos 




7 A. M. 


3 P. M. 


11 p. M. 


a ft 
M 


1887-88. 
October* 


o 

44.7 
38. 6 
311.6 
27.8 
36.1 
37.6 
40.8 
48.4 
57.7 
55 . 4 


49.0 
40.7 
32.9 
34.9 
39.8 
42.5 
44.4 
53.0 
60.7 
60.1 
62.6 
54.9 

575.5 
48.0 


44.3 
38.8 
30.6 
27.8 
.36.1 
36.2 
39.3 
4*1.3 
54.1 
54.8 
55.9 
51.7 

515.9 
43.0 


o 

46.0 
.39.4 
31.4 
30.2 
.37.7 
38.8 
41.5 
49.2 
57.5 
56.8 
58.4 
52.6 


o 

58 
48 
49 
50 
45 
54 
63 
61 
76 
73 
76 
68 


33 
31 
13 
11 

27 
24 
23 
40 
48 
51 
49 
42 


o 

25 
17 




36 


January 


39 
18 


March 


30 
40 


Mavt 

Junef 


21 

28 


Tiilvt 


21 


An<Tnstt3 


56.6 
51.3 

525.6 
43.8 


27 


September^ 


26 


Sum 


539.5 
44.9 

















* The observations taken from 7 A. M. October 1 to 7 A. M. October 9 were within 
a distance of 35 miles northward of SitUa. 

t Tiie observations taken from 11 p. M. May 27 to 3 P. M. June 8 were to the 
northward and eastward of Sitl^n, as far as tlie vicinity of Juneau, Alasisa. 

X The observations taken from 7 A. M. July 2 to 7 A. m. August 12 were taken 
to the northward, eastward and southward of Sitka, as far as the vicinity of Juneau 
and of Prince of Wales Island, Alaska. 

^ The observations from 3 P. M August 29 to 7 A. M. September 17 were taken to 
the northward and eastward of Sitka, as far as Pyramid Harbor, Alaska. 

The remaining observations were taken at Silka, Alaska. 



Appendix B. 
Fur-seals taken by the Alaska Commercial Company on the islands of St. Paul and 
St. George in each year from 1870 to 1888, inclusive, upon which a tax and royalty 
of ^2.62A each together with $55,000 yearly rent is paid to the Government : 



Year. 


Number. 


Year. 


Number. 


Year. 


Number. 


J370 


9,965 
9.\994 
90,911 
100,082 
101,031 
99,933 
99,992 


1877 


100,000 
89,756 
99,802 
99,623 

100,372 
97,720 
99,227 


1 884 


100,000 


1871 


1878 

1S79 


1885 


1 00,000 


1S7'> 


1886 

18-^7 


100,000 


1873 


188(.i 


100,000 


1874 


1881 

1882 


1888 


100,000 


1 875 


Total 




1876 


1883 


1,793,438 







Upon which there should have been received by the Government, unless some 
part of the rent, tax, or royalty has been remitted, the sum of $5,752,774.75. 



ALL ABOUT ALASKA. 63 



To Prevent Sea-sickness. 

While there can be no sea-sickness on the Alaska 
Excursion Trips from Puget Sound north, it is occasionallv 
a little lumpy on the open ocean and some people insist on 
getting sea-sick. The following Recipe has been tried 
by many and found wonderfully efficacious^ viz.: 

Bromide Sodium four drachms 

Bromide Ammonium two drachms 

Peppermint Water three ounces 

Mix and take a teaspoonful before meals and at 
bed-time; begin treatment three days before going on 
board. 



BAGGAGE CHECKED. 



Parties desiring to have their baggage transferred in 
San Francisco or Oakland can secure prompt delivery 
by leaving their checks with the California Tt^ansfer 
Company, 222 Montgomery Street. If undecided as 
to where you will have your baggage transferred on 
arrival in San Francisco, you can have it taken to 
Transfer Company's office and held subject to your order 
for three days without storage and for the one transfer 
charge, which includes taking to the office, storing, and 
delivering to any train or steamei- or any part of the 
city. Trunks, oOc. Valises or Packages, 2oc. 



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